

» 




































































A Poet's Cabinet 


Being Passages, Mainly Poetical, from the 
Works of 

George Lansing Raymond, L,HD. 

Author of “ A Life in Song/' “ Ballads, and Other Poems,” 

44 Dante and Collected Verse,” etc. 


Selected and Arranged According to Subject by 

Marion Mills Miller, Litt, D, 

Editor of “The Classics — Greek and Latin,” etc. 


Illustrations by 

Howard Chandler Christy 


G* P. Putnam’s Sons 

New York London 

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PREFACE 


Cyclopedias of quotations are many and various, and yet 
each may have a particular value that fully justifies its 
existence. The editor may have collected standard quota- 
tions, in which case his compilation possesses mainly the 
character of a reference work, giving the golden thoughts 
of the race in that mintage of artistic expression which has 
been stamped with approval by the masters of literature 
and accepted as sterling currency by the people. Such a 
work requires wide and accurate knowledge in its editor, 
but this alone; indeed the less literary discrimination he 
has the better it may be for a book recording confessedly the 
judgments of the men of the past whose endorsement of 
particular forms of expression has caused their incorporation 
into literature. The standards for constructing a work of 
this sort are identical with those of dictionary-making. 

Again, there is an order of cyclopedias of quotations in 
which the editor assumes the function of a connoisseur. 
He selects from accepted passages those whose form and 
substance meet with his special approval, and he adds other 
passages less known which in his opinion seem worthy of a 
similar incorporation into literature. If his taste and ability 
are such as to justify his purpose, the work has itself some- 
thing of the character of the literature with which it deals. 
It is a true anthology, valuable for inspiration as well as 
for reference and research. 

A third form of the cyclopedia of quotations is that in 
which these are confined to one author, the purpose being 
to present, in representative extracts from his works, an 
ordered conspectus of his views, either direct or implicit, 
on life or nature or art or whatever subject it be upon which 
he has contributed to the world thoughts of enduring value. 
Such a work is of a higher class than not only a general 
dictionary of quotations, but also a general anthology. It 
is, in fact, the best form of autobiography, the unconscious 
rather than the self-conscious sort; in it the essential spirit 

iii 


IV 


PREFACE 


of the author is revealed, the obscuring bulk of the body of 
his work having been eliminated, and only those features 
retained which reveal the characteristic gestures of the mind 
and soul that express personality. 

The present book is a work of this last class. The author, 
whose intellectual and spiritual portrait it is intended to 
depict in a synthesis of his ideas and ideals as expressed 
in literary form, is both a philosopher and a poet. As 
a teacher of aesthetics, chiefly the artistry of language in 
both oral and written forms, he has exerted an influence over 
thousands of young men, in Williams College and Princeton 
and George Washington Universities, some of whom, among 
them the writer, who was his pupil and assistant-teacher 
at Princeton, acknowledge with gratitude the formative 
inspiration which they received from personal contact 
with him. 

A far wider area of influence he has circumscribed by his 
books, — a long series of works on aesthetics comparable 
only to those of Ruskin for scope of subject, consistency of 
interrelation, and originality of observation. The writer 
has had occasion a number of times, in his capacity as 
literary adviser, to refer authors who thought that they had 
made original discovery of vital principles in art, especially 
poetry, to Professor Raymond’s series as expressing the 
substance of their ideas. Among the disciples of his pen 
are to be found even more enthusiastic admirers than 
among his former pupils. 

Professor Raymond has followed the principles of his 
aesthetic philosophy, in so far as these apply to literature, in 
the writing of many poems upon widely varying subjects in 
many moods and measures. Through them all run the bind- 
ing threads of a consistent philosophy both of art and life. 
This causes his work to appeal especially to those who read 
poetry for intellectual and spiritual inspiration. It is a 
fundamental principle of his aesthetic philosophy that the 
most important function of technique is to rid the form of 
the thought from whatever may make it appear artificial or 
unnatural; from whatever may prevent a perfectly trans- 
parent — not to say luminous — expression of the substance 
of the thought. Consequently those readers who are in- 
clined to estimate poetry by striking and eccentric effects of 
phraseology or arrangement irrespective of any noteworthy 


PREFACE 


V 


ideas to which they call attention may not appreciate his 
writings in the same degree as do those who believe with 
him that language is a vehicle which derives its chief value 
from that of the thought which it conveys. 

Professsor Raymond’s verse is simple yet dignified, direct 
yet graceful, and clear yet, so far as he fulfills his own ideal, 
invariably imaginative, his conception being that nothing 
can be expressed according to the methods of art except as, 
by way either of reproduction or reference, the means or 
implements of expression are forms that can be seen or 
heard in natural life. When poetry fulfills this require- 
ment, its statements of facts affect one like arguments from 
analogy, e.g.: 

In form our frames but vehicle the soul; 

Yet by the vehicle, the world will rate it. 

When comes the splendor of the monarch’s march 

Men cheer his chariot, not his character. 

Dante , III., 2. 

Mere words are wind, nor all their storm or stress 

Can pack the air so thought cannot see through it. 

Idem, 11., 1. 

And its records of experience enable the reader to perceive 
more than the things described, because these are con- 
stantly being likened to something else, e.g.: 

As dawn began 

Erasing all the stars with lines of light 

A Life in Song: Daring , xiv. 

While the stars like sparks that linger where the fire of sunset dies. 

Idem: Dreaming , 11. 

Moreover, as a man usually refers by way of comparison to 
effects in nature because these have seemed to him to be 
attractive or beautiful, Professor Raymond maintains 
that in poetry beauty should usually characterize the 
illustration even of subjects that in themselves have little 
or no beauty; as, for instance, in this reference to hostile 
footsteps heard through a midnight tempest in a jungle: 

Hark! There seems human rhythm in this hell. 

What hot pursuit is it comes burning through 

These crackling branches? 

The Aztec God , 1. 


VI 


PREFACE 


Or this, suggested by the approach of a blizzard: 

It came like a boy who whistles first 
To warn of his form that shall on us burst, 

As if nature feared to jar the heart 
By joys too suddenly made to start. 

The Last Home Gathering. 

As applied to both thought and description, Professor 
Raymond holds with Aristotle that the purpose of art is to 
fulfill and, as it were, to transfigure, nature — not copy her, 
— to aid her to attain, by her own methods, the ideals 
toward which she is striving, as these are divined by the 
artist. Artists in general, and poets in particular, must 
therefore possess the qualities of reverent observation and 
spiritual interpretation, be not only lovers and disciples of 
nature, but prophets of the coming perfection, as well. 
Professor Raymond is such a poet; he is an idealist whose 
aim is the attainment of the highest order of reality. This 
is indicated by one of his titles, “Ideals Made Real.” 

This philosophy of Professor Raymond is so evident in all 
his writings that there is general agreement among the critics 
of his books that he has a noble message to impart, and a 
clear and consonant manner of delivering it. That he will 
grow in the esteem of lovers of high thinking and fine 
feeling and inevitably become recognized as one of the 
truest and best of modern poets, is also a prevalent opinion 
among those reviewers who, wearied with the ever increas- 
ing roll of the “idle singers of an empty day,” hail with 
ardor the advent of a poet who can show us the fullness of 
life, — phases of every part of it — brimming with beauty 
and saturated with spirituality. It was a critic of this 
order who said in reviewing “A Life in Song”: “Some day, 
Dr. Raymond will be universally recognized as one of the 
leaders in the new-thought movement. . . . He is a poet 
in the truest sense. His ideals are ever of the highest, and 
his interpretation is of the clearest and sweetest. He has 
richness of genius, intensity of human feeling, and the 
refinement of culture. His lines are alive with action, 
luminous with thought and passion, and melodious with 
music.” 

It is with this faith in the enduring value and growing 
appreciation of Professor Raymond’s poetry that the 


PREFACE 


vii 

present book of selections from his works has been com- 
piled. This has been done with his thorough approval 
and invaluable assistance. The passages quoted, though 
abounding in phrases and lines characterized by those 
classic qualities of outer sensuous beauty and inner spiritual 
truth which invite remembrance and repetition have not 
been selected mainly for these reasons, but for the impor- 
tance of the sentiments expressed in them, and the revela- 
tion that they afford of the author’s attitude toward “the 
world without and the world within.” Indeed, in many 
cases it is the paragraph as a whole which will be treasured 
by the reader, and recalled as much, perhaps, in mood and 
thought as in form of expression. 

The contents of the volume have been arranged in the 
alphabetic order of their subjects, thereby rendering them 
available without an index. The book thus forms in both 
the subjective and objective senses of the phrase “a poet’s 
cabinet,” being an ordered collection of representative 
specimens of the work of a poet, intended for the use and 
enjoyment of everyone who in spirit if not in rite is himself 
a votary of the Muses. That the devotees of these divini- 
ties are increasing rapidly in number is indicated by the 
recent organization of poetry societies, publication of 
poetry magazines, and repeated printings of collections of 
verse by single authors, as well as general anthologies, new 
and old. 

It is hoped that the present work will find its share of 
readers among this select class upon whom the benison 
still rests which was uttered by Theocritus of Sicily, 
consecrated priest of the Muses. 

In solemnly affirming his devotion to these goddesses of 
Song he said, 

“Beloved are they by me, for him who is loved by the Muses 
Circe can never degrade to grovelling uses 

With the magical draught she infuses.” 

Marion Mills Miller. 


The Authors Club, New York. 


“ The artist, the priest, the historian, the philoso- 
pher, in moments of discouragement when they 
feel themselves assailed by the temptation to think 
only of a career or of money, may well find new 
strength in the idea that each of them is working in 
his different way to preserve an ideal of perfection in 
men’s souls — it may be a perfection of art or of 
morality, of the intellect or of the spirit. Let them 
remember that this ideal, limited as it may seem, 
serves as a dike to prevent our civilization from being 
engulfed in an overwhelming flood of riches and from 
sinking in an orgy of brutality. The task is so great 
and so noble that those who strive for it ought surely 
to feel that they do not live in vain.” — The conclusion 
and climax of “ Ancient Rome and Modern America ,” 
by Guglielmo Ferrero , page 248. 


viii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


I. The Author . . . Frontispiece 

From a photograph 

DRAWINGS 

by 

Howard Chandler Christy 

It is only doing justice to Mr. Christy — and it should enhance the in- 
terest in these illustrations— to state that they represent almost the earliest 
of his drawings and of the public’s recognition of their excellence, having 
been prepared, twenty years ago, for an edition of “ Ideals Made Real,” 
which, owing to the financial depression of the period, was not issued as 
planned. 


FACING 

PAGE 

II. Caused that our school’s head, 

Already nodding o’er his noonday pipe, 
Should beck at sever’d dreams with one 
nod more, 

And so consent to our dreams. . . 32 

III. How, all its chairs made vacant one by 

one, 

Th’ applause rose thinner at his bachelor 

club ...... 96 

IV. Awake, asleep, throned constant o ’er 

my heart, 

I served this image all intangible, 

This photographic fantasy . . .128 

ix 


X 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 

PAGE 

V. That oft then I recall'd your form, your 
words? 

That then I came to do as you would do, 

And think as you would think? . .192 


VI. 

Would only crave, 
When we have so much else in sympathy, 
That holy state where two souls, else at 
one, 



Would both be God’s. 

224 

VII. 

With cravings pale 
For church and stole and sermons of my 



own ...... 

256 

VIII. 

“ I mean," I breathed out cautiously, 

“ to write 

A tale of love, and I have planned the 
tale 



To open here." ..... 

288 

IX. 

When autumn steals the sunlight from 



the flowers ..... 

320 

X. 

Storms of swift and full distress 

May make of mind a wilderness, 



A flood of anguish bringing. 

354 


XI. Woman's grief, 

If there be any manhood left in him, 
Will rouse his efforts to bespeak her 
peace ...... 


384 


A Poet's Cabinet 


I 









A Poet’s Cabinet 


ACCENT AND LANGUAGE 

We speak 

One language too, but differ in the accent. 

The language gives the passwords of the race, 
The accent keys the culture of the home. 

The Aztec God , iv., i. 

ACCEPTED 

To-night when the sun had sunk below 
And the moonlight fill'd the sky, 

Our hearts were beating like wings that would go 
And glow with the stars on high. 

0 surely our souls had left the earth; 

For a vague and mystic light 

Hung over our hopes, and hush’d our mirth, 

And hid the world from sight. 

1 had touch’d her hand ; but my soul within 
Felt not the flesh that I press’d; 

But the flow of currents it knew were akin 
To the fair dear life of the blest. 

And then it was all so easy, at last, 

For me to say what I said ; 

As her full bright eye she downward cast, 

And turn’d from me her head. 

She is mine, she is mine; and the years may go; 

And the worlds may whirl where they will ; 

But heaven is good, and forever I know 
Our hearts must have their fill. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xlii. 

ACCIDENT, INTENTIONAL 

An accident ! — 

Like that which follows from the rock that falls 
Where men who lie in wait have loosened it. 

An accident- — oh yes! — that plots to arm 

i 


2 


A POETS CABINET 


The palsied, shaking, thought-void clutch of rage, 
And let it loose to raise a hellish storm 
Just where the good have come for heavenly calm! 
The lightning of your flashing blades fell not 
By accident. Dante , II., 2. 

ACCUSATIONS, DANGER OF PETTY 
That reminds me of a hunter who pelts a cliff with 
pebbles that the birds may fly from it, and be shot 
down. When ills are threatening conscience, petty 
accusations, that fright from paltry dangers, often 
prove the surest way to make us fly to great ones. 

Tuition for her Intuition , i. 

ACTION AND THOUGHT, MEN OF 

With him quick action follows on the thought. 
With me come only talk, and then more thought. 
He mounts to find success. I prophesy — 

Perhaps; but where success is, at my best, 

Am only of the crowds that cheer it. 

Columbus , v., 2 . 

Give monks the meed of vague abstraction, 

But noblest souls find satisfaction, 

And consciousness of life in action. 

*T is they that, where they cannot know, 

Walk on by faith, who strengthen so 
The faith by which they further go. 

*T is they that try what work can earn, 

Who test their own work’s worth, and turn 
From wrong to right for which they yearn. 

’T is they whose thinking aids their kind, 

Who, while they help their brothers, find 
The truth that most rules every mind. 

And, while to this they too adjust 
Their lives, because they feel they must, 

Their faith beholds the form august 
Of God behind each form of dust ; 

For God’s truth only all men trust. 

And so I hold that work controls 
The life that blesses most our souls. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xlii. 
ACTRESS AS ACTRESS 

Real lovers, hand in hand, may fail to see 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


3 


How she, with feigned familiarities, 

Can make more firm my faith in my ideal. 

Ah, they wot not that life has left to me 

But dreams of that which might be, not what is; 

And, while no dream holds her, I feel them real. 

My Actress. 

ACTRESS AS SWEETHEART 

She would live, 

With faintest smile, to fascinate — ah — crowds! 

The rabble would be ravish’d but, forsooth, 

To clap with crazy hands the rarer air 

Wherein she moved. For them her voice would sound 

With every trill so swaying all who heard 

That thronging cheers would thunder in response! — 

Her form, so sweet, would plead till foulest lives 

Would feel how pure were joys beyond their reach, 

And long for things their touch could never taint ! 

My sweet, sweet love! Ideals Made Real , XL. 

ACTRESS AS WIFE 

Alas, I could but seem — 
Beside the gilded glory of the stage, 

Beside the loud-mouthed suitors of the show, 

An unwhipt cur, to wait at some backdoor, 

And jar with signalling bark the echo sweet 
Of all- the- town’s applause. She mine would be 
But as the sun, whose flaming brow has touch’d 
The morning sea that flushes far and near, 

Is thine, O trembling globulet of spray, 

Because, forsooth, his image, glass’d in all 
The sea and world, is glass’d, as well, in thee! — 
Fool, fool! yet dear, dear folly! Idem. 

ADMIRATION 

And what if her heart should then find sweet 
The praise that her nature knows is meet? — 

A flower may live in its own perfume, 

And why not a maiden fresh in her bloom 
In the sweet air shared by all the wise 
Who follow like fringe her beauty’s guise? 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxv. 


4 


A POETS CABINET 


advance (. see change and progress) 

Truth’s warriors in a mighty host advance, 

Whose lines with wings of infinite expanse 
Now rout, and now seem routed by the foe. 
Smoke-wrapt amid the fight, no man can know 
If most he should exult in drums that beat 
For forward movement, or for full retreat. 

The line near by him may but backward roll 
To shape the slow sure progress of the whole. 

If so, surmising where he can not prove 
How all things toward life’s final victory move, 

His faith need not lose all its confidence, 

Tho’ it surrender every old defence. 

Heaven’s truth were small, if naught it brings could be 
Outside the mental range of such as we. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , liii. 
ADVANCED THOUGHT AND ACTION 
O soul, what earthly crown 
Is bright as his renown 
Whose tireless race 
Outruns the world’s too halting pace, 

To reach, beyond the things men heed, 

That which they know not of, but need! 

O soul, what man can be 
As near to Christ as he 
Who looks to life 

Not first for fame and last for strife; 

But shuns no loss nor pain that brings 
The world to new and better things ! 

Columbus , iv., 2. 

ADVANCE IN ART 

In candor, my friend, you seem too much at home 
With nymphs of Olympus and gods of old Rome. 

The world has advanced, and the artist, if sage, 

Will seek to give form to the thought of his age. 

The curve of a limb and the pose of a head 
May be all the same in the living as dead; 

But she that you woo, must have life and be young, 
And speak, ere you love her, and speak your own 
tongue. The A rtist's Aim. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


5 


ADVICE 

In every path 

Experience is the warrant for advice. 

Haydn , xxvi. 

ADVICE, SOMETIMES AN ECHO 
Some people ask advice like boys when shouting 
to get an echo; and a rock will give it. 

Tuition for her Intuition , hi. 
AFFINITY 

Yes, all through life, whenever come in view 
Those helper-spirits, always on the quest 
For moods too like their own moods to rebuff 
The thought that is to their own thinking true, 
To know our own twin angel from the rest, 

One touch, one look, one accent is enough. 

Our Affinity . 

Yet at times I deem our souls 
Are all of them bom in pairs ; 

And a sweet unchangeable law controls 
The love that each of them shares; 

And she, could she only know my mind, 

Might find a love, so deep, so kind! 

A Life in Song: Loving, xv. 

In a single path I see them wend ; 

With one thought’s weight I see them bend. 
Brought face to face with whispers low 
From breath to breath their secrets flow, 

And, as if one stroke the sweet lines drew, 

The smile of one is the smile of two. 

Then oft, more swift than a flashing ray 
Through rifting clouds at the dawn of day, 
Through lifting lids a glance will fly, 

All slight yet bright, from eye to eye; 

While like twin clouds one sunset flushes 
One feeling fills them both with blushes. 

Idem, xvi. 

I have found her face in the crowded room; 

And strange it arose as a rose in bloom 
In the depth of a desert of rocks alone, 

For I never saw then a charm but her own. 

Idem , xi. 


6 


A POETS CABINET 


I have talk’d with her; and oft has it seem’d 
As if I had known her long, 

In a mystic realm of which I have dream’d, 

In a realm where speech is all song. 

But what has brought her, and who can she be 
That reads me through and through, 

With the eyes of a god that, turn’d on me, 

Knows all that ever I knew? Idem , x. 

Ah, did my love but love me well, 

I scarce could need my love to tell; 

Out through my every trembling tone 
Would thrill through her the joy I own. 

Ah, did my love but love me well, 

Her soul would need one only spell, 

My face would come, my voice would call, 

And these would charm her, all in all. 

Idem , xxviii. 

AFFINITY REVEALED BY AFFLICTION 

Soon as I show my spirit, 
Your own sweet spirit which is one with mine, 

Will recognize it, as we both thank heaven 

For cloud and storm and flash that struck me down, 

And heaven in life that followed death in life. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., I. 

AFFLICTION {see BEREAVEMENT and TROUBLE) 

How often love that loses earthly friends, 

Comes back from all things outward toward itself ; 
And finding self, finds heaven’s design within? 

Haydn , xxix. 

Such conflicts come but seldom; storms of spring, 
Uprooting much, and wracking much the soil, 

They find it frost-bound, and they leave it green. 
Alas, if grain or chaff grow then, depends 
Upon the germs their rains have wrought upon. 

Idem , xxxv. 

And He who made man what he is — ah, me ! 

To make him what he should be, more and more, 
May send the storms that sweep life’s troubled sea 
To bring from depths the gems that line the shore. 
Oft spirits, rent within by grief and sighing, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


7 


Show each on whom their inward treasures pour 
A wealth of worth that long has there been lying, 

But not by one about them ever seen before. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxxiii. 
Ah me, to think what all could win, 

In spite of natures prone to sin, 

By working well their wealth within! — 

For it, like gems of priceless worth, 

That fill the mire and mines of earth, 

Oft gains its dearness from its dearth; 

Nor oft is got, until, at last, 

The pick, or flood, or fire, or blast 
Has rent the place that held it fast. 

Then wonder not that wreck and woe 
Should be one’s lot on earth below. 

Kind heaven itself may open so 
The spirit’s depth, its worth to show. 

Idem: Doubting , xliii. 

AGE, A HAPPY, VS. UNHAPPPY YOUTH 
Like other earthly things, our lives move on 
Half light, half shadow, and with me 
The shadows came in youth. 

.... Your brilliancy 

Developed late, eh? like a winter’s eve — 

Or lightning from a cloud. But you are right. 

This life is like a bladder-air-ball. If 

You press its youth-side in, you, by-and-by, 

Will bulge its age-side out. Columbus , II., 2. 

AGE, CONSERVATISM OF 

Earth’s elders and sages, 

Far off from the place where the springs all start, 
Scarce ever can prize 
A stream that supplies 

A draft less far from its font than their age is. 

No deeds can course from as grand a source 
As the life of which they in their youth form’d a part. 
Naught sparkles as bright 
To them as the light 

Of an old, cold, frozen, and crystallized art. 

Unveiling the Monument . 


8 


A POETS CABINET 


AGITATION 

My spirit’s agitation 
So wrenched the links of memory that they failed 
To hold together. Dante , ill., 2. 

AGITATOR, THE 

He wanders through the state, 

And prophesies convulsion and reform 
To those that feel they have not long to wait, 

Who heed in him the mutterings of the storm. 
He spends his years in pleading and in proving, — 
And every year to more who mind his call, — 
How life on earth toward life in heaven is moving, 
And freedom is a gift that God shall yet give all. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxxviii. 

Far his feet 

Would journey through the land from town to town. 
The trumpet-blast of truth his lips would blow, 
Though courting oft maltreatment by his pleas, 
Roused throngs, erelong, with whom he march’d 
unarm’d, 

A champion of that love of man for man 
Which cannot rest ere all have liberty. 

Idem , Note vii. 

AGROUND 

Deep plow’d the cruiser’s prow 
The broken waves below, 

So bows a bull whose pride is full 
To toss a stubborn foe. 

She plung’d and reel’d and roll’d. 

Ah, better had she tack’d! 

The water flew the bulwark through. 

The mainmast bent and crack’d. 

The wind, it whistled there; 

The boatswain whistled here. 

The captain swore; the mainsail tore; 

The jib had ript its gear. 

A flood was on the deck. 

The crew were floundering round. 

Then, clean and chill, and safe and still, 

The cruiser lay aground. 

The Last Cruise of the Gaspee . 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


9 


aim; not the same for all 
Oh, do not think that heaven moves all alike ! 
Some minds are sighted for a single aim, 

And right for others may be wrong for them ! 

West Mountain . 

AIM IN ART 

While only the light of a coming ideal 
Lures those to the good who imagine it real, 

No work can ever inspire the earth 

That embodies no promise of unfulfill’d worth, 

And naught that the world accounts worthy of fame, 
In art as in act, but is rank’d by its aim. 

The Artist's Aim. 

AIMS 

Our lives are finite, but the aims of life 
Are infinite, and crowd on every side. 

Whate’er we strive to reach, in thought, in deed, 
At last, some one aim surely tips the scales; 

As it has weight, its rivals are thrown up. 

Columbus , hi., i. 

AIMS, HIGH 

I would rather snatch at birds than dig for worms. 

Dante , I., I. 

Can it be true that aims too grand, too high, 

May miss the garden sought, where, hour by hour, 
The fellow- workers in new Edens meet? 

Can but the small seed’s growing, by-and-by, 
Engarland all one’s path with leaf and flower, 

And keep the world he lives in fresh and sweet? 

The Climber. 
God gives each man 

One life where kindle feeling, thought, and will; — 
And bids him hold it like a torch on high 
To light himself and others. Do you claim 
That he should lower it? 

.... Why, in form, perhaps ; 

And forms of different shape hold torches. 

.... None 

Can ever plunge the torch beneath earth’s mire 
And keep it burning. Dante , hi., 2. 


10 


A POETS CABINET 


AIR 

You know a man may have an air about him 

.... Yes, and that which puffs up, makes a swell, 
is bad air. — No good air in gas! 

The Little Twin Tramps , III., 2. 

AIR, KEEN AND BRIGHT 

Every atom of air is as keen and as bright as a dart 
of a Cupid to tingle one’s blood to a glow and make one 
in love with all things. The Ranch Girl , n. 

ALMS 

What most men want the most, I think, is being 
let alone; and money enough to buy the privilege. 
.... Then give us money. 

.... Give you money? — A true man wants not 
alms but aid. The Little Twin Tramps , ill., 3. 

alone ( see companionship, lonely, and self- 
conquest) 

How sad, when thoughts, proud once to roam, 
Abused and bruised, came mourning home 
With their young ardor overthrown ! 

How sad is life that lives alone ! 

There was a time, when, brave and bare, 

The little hands, all soft and spare, 

Claspt all, and hoped that love was there; 

Not gloved in fear, claspt every thing, 

With every rose to grasp a sting; 

Then dropt it, sad and suffering. 

And what are now those thoughts about? 

Oh, they have turn’d from deed to doubt: 

They work within, if not without. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , vm. 

In life or death, knights crowned at heaven’s high 
throne, 

Pass up through paths where each must move alone. 

Midnight in a City Park. 
Within himself when fierce the fight is waged, 

Oh, who can aid the purpose thus engaged! 

The soul, unheard, in darkness and alone, 

Can never share a contest all its own. 

What coward he, then, when the crisis nears 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


il 


Who cries for comrades, nor dare face his fears! 

No comrade’s arm or mail can ever screen 
The coming conqueror in that strife unseen. 

Idem. 

Alone, and yet not lonely. Be one true 

To his own mission, he is in the ranks 

With all that move toward all good ends that wait. 

Columbus , v., 2. 
AMBASSADOR, THE BEST 

No wise or permanently successful man tries to 
influence others against their own judgments or 
interests. The best ambassador is the one who best 
recognizes that the world is wide enough for all, and, 
therefore, that what is good for one is good for all. 

Where Society Leads , n. 

AMBITION 

What an appetite 

Has man’s ambition ! all that gluts to-day 
But bringing greater hunger for the morrow; 

A fire consuming all it feeds upon, 

Still flaming upward and beyond it all. 

Columbus , iv., i. 

He ’s the happy man who holds his head not higher 
than his home. 

’T is right hard to stoop forever. 

A Life in Song : Dreaming, xxvi. 
Let one, who honor craves, be strong 
In worth, to make dishonor wrong: 

Or, if he crave a sceptre, find 
A task that fits a sovereign mind. 

Their high ambition, do not doubt, 

Is heaven-directed and devout, 

Who strive, to plan, and then work out 
What God has given them souls to will ; 

With thankful heart remembering still 
That shallow depths the soonest fill, 

And endless blessings wait in store 
For those alone who long for more. 

Idem , Doubting, xvii. 

A woman wrecked at sea, would better lash 
The anchor to her throat, than try to breast 


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A POETS CABINET 


The waves of life in such a world as this, 

Wed to a man without ambition. She 
Could not sink sooner. Cecil the Seer , I. 

AMBITION, AND OTHERS* WELFARE 

Where thrived ambition yet, but strove to build 
Itself a monument by heaping up 
That which, when lost, made hollow all about it! 
How many castles have I seen in Europe, 

Where every graceful touch in breadth and height 
That formed the great hall’s pride, seemed underlined 
As if by shadowy finger-prints of force 
That snatched all from the hamlet at its base ! 

Idem. 


AMERICA 

Our native land, we love it. 

’T is Freedom’s own, where reign 
No tyrants throned above it 
O’er serfs that wear their chain; 

Where birth and wealth to worth give way, 
And none in camp or court have sway, 
Except as all ordain. 

America , Our Home. 


AMERICAN WOMEN 

Our waiting friends, 

And, grouped with them, some ruddy German maids 
Whose deeper hues but finely rimmed with shade 
The subtler beauty of our special hosts. 

These came from out that western world wherein, 

By fresher breezes and by brighter suns, 

The Saxon tissue, sweeten’d and refined, 

Unfolds, each season, more ethereally. 

Ideals Made Real , xv. 


AMIABLE LOVERS 

It ’s strange that the most amiable people are the 
very ones that you girls seem to like the least. 

.... We want to have people like us not on account 
of their own good traits, but on account of ours. 

Where Society Leads , I. 
ANGELS 

Ay, ay, as blest as the angels are 
That over her pathway hover, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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Whose heaven is truly sweeter far 
Because they feel they love her. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxi. 
ANGER {see WORDS PASSIONATE) 

Were anger wise, 

The face that would its force disguise 
Would not so blush to feel it rise. 

Idem, Doubting , iv. 

another’s 

None from another’s practice gains in skill, 

Or grows in power of feeling, thought, or will; 

None with another goes to God in dreams 
To seek the strength that his lost strength redeems. 

Midnight in a City Park . 

ANTICIPATION 

A coming glory casts a glow before it. 

Those who shall be the lords of fowldom gobble 
A gobble at times before their gills are grown. 

The Aztec God , iv., 1. 
APPEARANCE, JUDGING BY 

Where there are so many who think that eyesight 
is the spring of thought, our plans for them can be 
the best made good, when we present them with a 
good appearance. You see, if we dress up, and they 
suppose we always keep dressed up, ’t is not our fault. 
We have but done what everybody does; and they 
have not had wit enough to know it. 

On Detective Duty , II. 

APPEARANCE VS. SUBSTANCE IN A WITNESS 

In a witness, one should not forget that words, like 
wine, are valued less for what they really are than for 
their flask and label; and so the best thing one can 
do for others is in appearance, often, and not substance. 

The Two Paths , 11. 

APPEARANCES, NOT DECEPTION TO ALL 

I tell you these men know the world. To them 
white faces are no signs that show white souls. For 
them no tears can wash away from cheeks the colors 
painted on them by the heart. Idem. 

APPEARANCES PUT ABOVE ESSENTIALS 

Henceforward, though you know a bush be poison, 


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A POETS CABINET 


Bid men come pluck and gorge its pretty berries; 
And, if all die, expect no blame for it — 

You have but carried out the kind of thought 
With which heaven filled the kind of mind like yours, 

Dante , II., i. 

APPETITE 

The worst of prisoners is a soul 
Severed from its own realm by appetite 
That lets naught pass that pays no toll to greed. 
Mere soulless brutes are better than are men 
With souls that love but that which they can lust for. 

The Aztec God , iv., i. 

APPETITE, NEVER SATISFIED 

Men are never satisfied with things as they are. 
When their throats are dry, they wet them with a 
drink; and when they are wet, they dry them with 
a smoke. The Snob and the Sewing Girl, I., 2. 

APPETITE, TO TEMPTER OF 

If I gulp not the feast you gorge me on, 

And bury all my soul beneath the spoils 
Of foul and glutton appetite — why then 
I will not prove the bloated beast you wish. 

The Aztec God , iv., I. 

APPLAUSE 

*T is not the accent of this world’s applause 
That marks the rhythm of the songs that fill 
Heaven’s vault, and, with their sweetness, well-nigh 
still 

The wings of angels, tempted then to pause. 

Staking All. 

.... Ah, yes, as I remember, when I left, 

I roused a noise too. 

.... You have roused one now 
That all the world will hear. 

.... You never praise 
A wind, because it makes the sea- waves roar: 

It may be empty, and it may do harm. 

A man should judge men’s noises at their worth. 

Columbus, iv., i. 

APPLAUSE, AS A LIFE’S REWARD 
Her soul had loathed applause, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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Had found her nature so belied, misjudged, 

Her life the embodiment of hollow sound, 

And all surroundings echoing back but sound, 
Chill admiration in the place of love, 

Her friends but flatterers, and herself unknown. 

Ideals Made Real , lxix. 
APPRECIATION 

The sun may find 
Its image in the dullest pool. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 

APPRECIATION, THE WORLD’S LACK OF 
A nation has been made the first on earth. 

Who made it this, for this deed has been made 
The last in all that nation — not one shred 
Of all his property, or power, or rank, 

Stripped by injustice from him, when well proved 
To be injustice, has been given back. 


A new world has been found of boundless wealth; 
And he who found it, finds himself a beggar. 

A king and queen were throned o’er that new world. 
Who throned them there, they seized and bound in 
chains. Columbus , v., 2. 

APRIL-DAY, AN 

Can I forget 

That wondrous April day that set me free? 

At first, as though I own’d no soul at all, 

I seem’d myself a part of that wide air, 

And all things else had souls. The very earth 
Beneath me seem’d alive! its pulse to throb 
Through every trembling bush! its lungs to heave 
Where soft-blown wind-sighs thrill’d the wooded hills ! 
And then, this great life broke in many lives, 

All one through sympathy. In lieu of clouds, 

The gusty breeze caught up the fluttering lark 
And shook down showers of trills that made bare rocks 
More sweet than fount-spray’d flowers, while all the 
leaves 

Went buzzing on their boughs like swarming bees. 

Haydn , vm. 


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A POETS CABINET 


ARGUMENT VS. TESTIMONY 

It is no one’s business, in this world, to pound 
away with arguments until he has exhausted his own 
breath, or benumbed the brain of the one who differs 
from him. It is his business to testify to the truth; 
and then to have faith enough in it and in God to 
leave it to do its own perfect work. 

Art and Morals . 

ARISTOCRACY 

Away with all the forms in state or church 
That aid the aristocracies of earth; 

And make men rate the bad or good they search 
By outward accidents of rank or birth. 

Away with honoring spirit less than station, 

And crowning men for blood, and not for brain; 
With testing worth by garb or occupation: 

And letting vice by might maintain itself, and reign. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lii. 

ARMFUL 

Oh, one could give a world of common men 
For just one armful of a man like that! 

Dante , I., 2. 

ARMS, A CHILD’S 

Her little arms about my neck seem adding to my 
life as much of beauty and of sweetness, too, as does 
the vine whose tendrils cling about the mouldering 
trunk of our old oak. On Detective Duty , I. 

ART 

Works of chisel, brush, and pen, 

Fit to body forth the thoughts breathed into them by 
Godlike men. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxxv. 

ART AND BEREAVEMENT 

O God, 

To save one’s art must love be sacrificed? — 
Redeem’d at that price, art would be too dear! 

Haydn , lv. 

ART AND NATURE 

You know there were no art, were there no forms 
Of nature in which art could frame its tribute. 

But many an artist, for this reason, fears 


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To emphasize the part he finds in nature 
Lest it outdo the part he finds in self ; 

So often that which seems most natural 
The one thing is that he will not let seem so. 

Dante , I., I. 

We read of truth who spell from nature’s page; 

And art can best make out the meaning there; 

For ’t is the artist’s thought that finds each form 
A form of thought, — imagination’s glass 
That views the infinite in the finite fact. 

Here moves a man, you say. What see you? — man? — 
Nay, nay; that guise material fashions there 
The image only of his manliness. 

And you can only know his life within, 

As from the image you imagine it. 

Yon little girl that skips beside the porch, — 

I know her, love her, not, save as I pass 
Behind that face to reach a region rare 
Where dolls are sentient babes, and brothers kings. 
And yonder maidens, musing in delight, 

I know not, love not, till, in sacrifice, 

My spirit seems to yield to their desires, 

To wait a watchful servant unto them, 

To move with motives that inspire their deeds, 

To look through their own eyes and see their views, 
And thrill with rhythm when their ear-drums throb; 
Then, joining all with all, imagine thus 
The movements of their hidden inner moods. 

Thus too, through all of life, how know we more? 

All things are fitful images alone, 

Reflecting glory from the Absolute; 

And he who can imagine from the part 
What marks the whole, walks in the light of heaven. 
Find then a life where every child becomes 
Earth’s animated toy of manliness, 

Each man the mass from which to mould a god, . 

And earth the pit whence all heaven’s wealth is mined, 
You find for thought a life worth living for, 

A life the artist gives us : it is he 
Discerns a spirit always veil’d in shape, 

A soul in man, and reason everywhere. 

Ideals Made Real, xxxi. 


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A POETS CABINET 


ART AND TRUTH 

When emotion swells and shrinks, 
The spirit’s wings are moving, . . . 

And that art moves them most, which mirrors most 
The life that is, and therefore is the truth. Idem . 

ART, ITS INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER 

And things there are that art can do for man 
To make him manlier. Not the senseless rock 
Is all it fashions into forms of sense; 

But senseless manhood, natures hard and harsh, 
Great classes crush’d, and races driven to crawl 
Till all their souls are stain’d with smut and soil, — 
More human seem these when the hands of art 
Have grasp’d their better traits and hold them forth . 
And men who see these better traits, and see 
The tender touch of art that holds them forth, 
Behold a beauty never else beheld; 

And all their hearts beat more humanely while 
They heed the plea of these humanities. 

Idem , XL vii. 

ART, MAKING THE IDEAL REAL 

The Sistine Babe it was, we spoke of Him. 

Because I find art’s glass, when rightly held, 
Revealing through the real the truth ideal, 

I said: “I seem to see not only Him, 

The Babe, but back of Him, His heavenly home. 

I seem to enter this — His handmaid there, 

And there commune until my soul is blest.” 

I said: “From thence my spirit seems to come, 

And feel its arms to be the throne of Christ. 

And this,” I said, “is wrought for me by art. 

Some hold that souls transmigrate after death, 

But art,” I said, “makes mine transmigrate here.” 

Idem , xvi. 

ART, MODELLED UPON NATURE 

And truth is in nature, nor dealt second-hand 
Through art, though most artful to fill the demand. 
So think of the present, its deeds and its dreams, 

As Raphael thought, but not Raphael’s themes; 

Nor be a Venetian to picture like Titian 
A woman to worship or goddess to kiss. 


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You are a new- world’s man: model from this. 

The Artist's Aim. 

ART, NEW PHASES OF 

The wants of the present, one never can gauge 
By the heathenish tastes of a heathenish age. 

The mummy lived once, and spoke as it ought. 

We modems, forgetting its life and its thought, 

For lost art sighing, too oft re-array 
What is only a corpse, and ought to decay. 

E’en if it were living, long centuries fraught 
With progress in action and feeling and thought 
Outgrow the old charms, and make the world crave 
New phases of art that the past never gave. Idem . 

ART, SUGGESTIVE OF THE HIGHEST TRUTH 

If the mere forms of nature can suggest the infinite, 
the eternal, the absolute, and much, also, with refer- 
ence to the character of the Life of which these are 
attributes, then the forms of art, even though they 
be, as is sometimes the case, no more than imitations 
of those of nature, can do the same. 

The Representative Significance of Form , 11. 
ART, THE, OF LIFE 

The ideal ! 

Henceforth our aim be this, — the art of life. 

I saw it not before; the stage of spirit 
So much more broad is than the stage of sense ! 
Comes on the soul now, actor, all divine, 

At play no longer ; nay, but shadowing forth 
A love complete that personated a God ! 

Ideals Made Real , lxxiv. 

ART VS. NATURE, ENDURING INTERESTS OF 
The works of human art may lose their charm. 

The picture, statue, building, wear no mail 
That can resist the subtle shafts of time. 

Their brightest color fades, their bronze corrodes, 
Their carving crumbles, and their marble falls. 

Oft, too, when one has wandered far from home, 

And craves the things he once thought wrought so well, 
The soul’s enlargement of the treasures missed 
That each may fit a niche of larger longing 
Will make all seem, when seen again, but small, 


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And, tested by the touch of present fact, 

But fabrics of a dream conjured by fancy. 

Not so with works of Nature. Years that pass 
May make the field more brilliant with more flowers, 
The ore more precious, and the cave more vast, 

And every mount, at our renewed return, 

Soar higher like thick smoke above a flame 
Fanned into ardor by the panting breath 
Of fleet-sped winds that rush to its embrace. 

Greylock, 

art’s proof 

Art’s proof is in the setting. Judge by that. 

For a Book of Contributions from Authors . 

ASCETICISM 

That slattern of the soul, 
Asceticism, shuffling toward far bliss, 

Slipshod and snivelling? — 

Ideals Made Real , xlix. 
What of those 

Who deem it wise to keep themselves in shade, 
Held as a shield to ward away the light 
With every ray of color that might reach them, 

As if they thought it their worst enemy? 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 
ASCETICISM CARICATURED 
Who ever saw thee decked in vain attire? 

.... Or thee not grave and gray? 

.... Or heard thee romp? 

.... Or thee hilarious? 

.... Or found thee once the toy of giddy fancy? 
.... Or thee, of disconcerted calculation? 

.... None ever! — Yet I fear this path. — I thought 
I heard — and oh, I dared then listen twice ! — 

I thought I heard strange singing — 

.... Birds? — I thought 

I saw — and oh, I dared then look there twice ! — 

I thought I saw a wicked, grinning ape. 

.... Hush, hush! Think not of these things. 
Nay, but think 

Of things that God hath made. Idem , n., 2 . 

The colors on the leaves, the very sky, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


21 


Seem sadly gay. 

• ♦ • • Oh, do not look at them! 

They glow to tempt the lusting of the eye. 

Idem . 


ASPIRATION 

A wingless hand 
Lifts only to a wingless height. A r61e 
Not past the common reach of common men 
Cannot incite uncommon aspiration. 

The Aztec God , iv., i. 

Our aspirations, which, as grandly they evolve, 

Light the brow of meek conjecture with the flush of 
bold resolve. A Life in Song: Dreaming , n. 

0 they know, when aspiration sweeps them onward 
through the sky, 

That the outward life could never give the inward 
life the lie; 

Know no heaven would draw them on, or give them 
power to heed its call, 

If indeed the love and duty due to earth were all in 
all; 

Know no soul could ever tremble, touch’d as by an 
organ’s key, 

If the spirit’s life that touch’d it were a life that could 
not be; 

Know no soul could dream a dream set free from all 
that flesh can bind, 

If within were naught to vibrate, like to like and kind 
to kind. Idem , Watching , xxvn. 

Oh, have you never felt within the soul 
Desires that search far off in thoughts that steal 
All rest from sleep through dreams and revery; 

As if the spirit in its loneliness 

Were haunted by some long-lost sympathy, 

And struggling to regain the sunder’d state? — 

Deem not to end these wants by earthly gains. 

While seeking them, the boy would be a man, 

Maids blush for maidenhood, and lovers kneel, 

Then fiercely strive for wealth and power and fame. 
But, tho’ they know it not, they ever strive 
For gains that loom beyond their earthly sphere, 


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Until their wasted energies give way, 

Or mount earth’s thrones to feel they rule, alas, 
Like Alexander, only vanity. 

For ah, their spirits crave the Infinite, 

Nor can be sated save by that embrace 
Which makes them one with God. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , XU. 

ASPIRATION AND HUMAN LIMITATIONS 

The while my soul has longed to rise 
Successfully as field and cliff and tree 
To heights where one could dwell above a world 
Whose common life appeared but all too common, 
Its aims too low for love to seek and honor, 

And yet a world in which my own self, too, 

My body, spirit, all, bore part and share. 

West Mountain . 

ASPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT 
There is one only mission fit for man, — 

To be a spirit ministering to spirit, 

What fits for this? — A breath of higher sky, 

A sight of higher scenes, at times, a strife 
To mount by means impossible as yet. 

What then? — Believe me that the spirit-air, 

Like all the air above the soil we tread, 

Takes to its own environment of light 
No growth to burst there into flower and fruit 
That does not get some start, and root itself 
Amid this lower world’s deep, alien darkness, — 

No spirit uses wings in heaven that never 

Has learned of them, or longed for them, on earth. 

Berlin Mountain . 

ASPIRING 

Earth only shoos or shoots a bird ; 

To draw its wealth, it yokes the herd. — 

But few are those not tiring 
Of natures too aspiring. 

The common leaders of the day 
Amid the common people stay, 

Who but confide 
In those that guide 
Along the common way. 


The Idealist . 


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ASS 

A grazing ass that kicks but grass 
Has tricks that yet may kill. 

How Barton Took the General . 
ASSOCIATES, EVIL 

Lay hands on me, not I alone will have 
A score of masters. Look you to your mates. 

You pledged yourselves to stand together? What? — 
Have you, or you, no foe in all this crew? 

And now you place your life in that foe’s hands? 
When all he needs to raise himself in Spain 
Is telling truth? — no more? — Humph! Will he not 
tell? 

Ay, kill me, drown me, I shall be avenged. 

When bad men band, then traitors fill the camp ; 

And, if a fair foe fail, the foul will not, 

For in that fight are God and devil both. 

Columbus , hi., 2. 

ASSOCIATION 

Nothing keeps a man from going down like trying 
to keep side by side with those who are high up. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl , 1. 
ATTIC 

My attic here 

That shields me like a soul in clouds, 

When one has left the grave’s white shrouds 
And crawling worms that gnaw’d his heart, 

Ere he and things of earth did part. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxxn. 

ATTRACTIVE 

Have you observed which maid it is that proves 
The most attractive to the most men? 

.... No. 

Tell which? Yes, tell us. 

.... Why, of course, the one 

The most attractive to the most of them. 

You see that most men are such apes 
They never know which girl to go for next, 

Until they see where some one else has gone. 

The Aztec God , 111. 


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autumn {see fall and mountain view) 

AWE 

When we disembark 
Our hands will plant the cross just where we land. 
And now — you seem exultant — I confess 
To awe like that which Moses must have felt 
When God’s own hand had touched him as it passed. 
I cannot stand — nay, let me kneel with you. 

Columbus , hi., 2 . 

BABES 

But babes in homes, like buds that bloom in bowers, 
Keep out the sunlight but with hues that hold it there. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xv. 

All men are babies of a larger growth ; and take our 
good things as these do a bath. They shrink from it, 
at first, but forced to it, they feel so good they know 
how good are we who give it to them. 

Tuition for her Intuition , ill. 

BACHELOR 

And I confess that, while this light of love 
Plays lambent round so many glowing lips, 

I feel as chill, and lost, and out of place, 

As one lone dew-drop, prison’d in a shade 
Of universal noon. Ideals Made Real , v. 

He was not loath to be left there with the ladies; 
and, while he was left there, you may rest assured 
that he did not slight his opportunities. His eyes, 
as became one fresh from a school in which he had 
been trained to watch the acts of those each side of 
him, were working vigorously. He had noticed soon 
the sizes of these young ladies’ hands and arms, and 
how they used them; the backs of their heads, and 
how they had done up their hair, as well as many 
other little arrangements and adjustments, traits and 
graces, that can be revealed best when a woman is at 
work, and which, when they have been revealed to a 
bachelor, are apt to make him feel that he has been 
placed on a footing of especial intimacy with her. 

Modern Fishers of Men, 11. 

BACK, TURNING ONE’S 
A generous mind is never loath to face 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


25 


The object of its benefaction. No; 

Had all that they have done been kindly done, 

They would not thus have turned their backs upon me. 

The Aztec God , m. 

BAD, LET LOOSE 

When you tap your bad, it flows like tides from 
flooded dykes — to loose an endless ocean. To be safe, 
one ought to dam himself up at the start. 

On Detective Duty , 111. 

BAD, THE, HARMS MORE THAN THE GOOD HELPS 

It seems as if our good deeds all are written against 
the light of heaven in light ; and few, and often none, 
can see them. Bad deeds are written there in black; 
and one spot makes a blotch of all things. 

The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 

BALANCE 

If off his balance, balance him, ay, ay — 

Get even with him — no great task for you ! 

Columbus , II., 2. 

BALANCED CONTRARIES OF MOODS 
My moods moved on, — life’s usual way, 

The mainspring sped by balanced contraries, 

And every pulse, whose beating proves we live, 
Anon with deathlike voids alternating. 

One hour, my faith in her was like the sun, 

The next, my doubt was lightless as the night. 

Ideals Made Real , xxiv. 

BANISHMENT 

Did you ever dream 
A fate like mine? — a civic leper, Cino, 

Turned out of his own home because a pest; 

And then declared a pest to every home 
That still would welcome him. This final blow, 

It snaps the only staff remaining now 

From which my soul could wave a single signal. 

Worse off am I, than were a soldier slain, 

Ay, than a traveler in a tiger’s den. 

If but these limbs were plucked out, one by one, 

I were not doomed to live on then alone, 

An alien to all comrades, conscious ever 
That to oppose the currents coursing round 


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Were vain as efforts of mere spurting spray 
To still a surging ocean. Oh, my God ! — 

To live, yet be too frail to do the work 

That makes a life worth living! Dante , III., 2. 

BARD, COMIC 

Or when sad souls the wine would quaff 
Of mirth brimm’d bubbling o’er with laugh, 

What sparkling draughts in their behalf, 

The comic bard comes bringing! 

And ever, round the social board, 

As full the foaming pledge is pour’d, 

See how good-will the heart could hoard 

Is lavish’d with the singing. A Song on Singing . 

BARKING 

This devil’s cur, abuse, 

Is ever barking at my heel, 

Provoking sighs I should conceal, 

And making all my reason reel. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , iv. 

BASHFULNESS 

You have such awful eyes. 

They hush him so his inward soul stops thinking; 
And then his outward mien plays pedagogue 
And whips himself to make himself behave. 

Dante , I., I. 

Just think how hot he must be in his heart 
To make him warp and shrink up as he does 
When you come near. Idem . 

BASHFULNESS OF LOVE 

Love, like God, 

So brightly dear is it, that lives like ours, 

Poor vapory lives, mere dews before the dawn, 
Dare not to face it lest we melt away? 

Haydn , xvi. 

BASHFULNESS, THE SOURCE OF INSULT 
Because my soulless will has made me brute, 

And kept me staring like a pointer-cur 
As if to turn to prey the very one 
I most revere, must then my voice, forsooth, 
Bark out an insult in the same direction? 

Dante , 1., I. 


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27 


BATTLE ( see war) 

And not for self, but others, 

True men to battle go. 

No longer meek, 

Where wrong is cruel, right is weak, 

Or aught has brought the base to band, — 
They throng to lend a hand. 

Cecil the Seer , m., 2. 
BATTLE WITH BOW AND ARROW 
We just had drawn our bows, each arrow aimed 
To wedge eternal stillness in between 
Unhinging joints of some affrighted heart, 

When down upon us burst that thunder-flash. 

The shock, so sudden, glanced the arrows up 
As if to shoot them in the face of gods 
Asail the clouds in yon black gulf. It gave 
Their men their chance. With one wild yell and 
bound 

They closed like smoke about the lightning’s fire; 
And, all with darts whirled on like sparks before 
A flame that followed, they came roaring on 
To fill the gaps their shots had made. 

The Aztec God , 1. 

BAY 

And reach the wharves, and watch the water still, 

Or ships about it sail’d with subtle skill, 

Long charm’d he knew not why; and there would stay 
Till sunset’s fire his glowing heart would thrill, 

Whose throbs within seem’d felt as far away 
As bells’ whose echoes broke like breakers round the 
bay. A Life in Song: Daring, lvii. 

BEAU 

Some women like a man that truckles to them, — a 
beau that bends the way that he is pulled. But in a 
modern camp the thing most needed is not a bow, I 
think, but bayonet. 

Tuition for her Intuition , hi. 

BEAUTIFUL 

Ay, sometimes things may be so beautiful, 

And fill the spirit with such holy thrills, 

To doubt their truth were kin to doubting God, 


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When face to face with his own blazing presence. 

Dante , II., 2. 

BEAUTIFUL, THE, SUBJECT TO TEMPTATION 

Ghouls like her can never look on what is beautiful 
without a strange, unconscious jealousy that turns 
what, in a pure mind, would be love to morbid hatred, 
hankering to play hell. Their ways would almost 
warrant joy in heaven when all were singing impre- 
catory psalms. The Two Paths , hi. 

beauty {see ideal and ideals) 

Nothing of sweetness can fill the air, 
Nothing of beauty bloom, 

Save as visions of life more fair 
Over the spirit loom. 

Musician and Moralizer . 

Everything in art or nature, robed in rich or rude 
attire, 

Gains in beauty while it gains in power to lure a pure 
desire. 

Surface claims may charm the senses, but the spirit 
from its throne 

Waives away all other suitors for what charms itself 
alone. A Life in Song: Dreaming , II. 

All beauty changes what it brightens. 

A flower that blooms may merely fall to soil, 

But, when it does, the soil to which it falls 
Is never quite the same it was before. 

Dante , n., 2. 

No beauty was ever revealed in art 
Where rhythm and tone or color and line 
Did not combine; 

And beauty of life was never one’s own 
Who, when he had sought it, sought it alone. 

Love and Life, L. 

The dim- veiled beauty of God’s holiness 
Looms always through art’s holiness of beauty. 

In the Art Museum . 

I judged 

Your spirit by the beauty of its body; 

And that seemed so at one with what I fancied 
I could not doubt that it would prove at one — 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


29 


Could we but know each other, through and through — • 
With all my soul that had conceived the fancy. 

Dante , III., 1. 

Henceforth, let beauty’s beams but gleam for me, 

I shall not shun them, as has been my wont, 

But make my eyes a sun-glass for my heart, 

And let them bum it. Ideals Made Real , v. 

Can her eyes have ever beheld my frame, 
Transfigur’d by a glow 
From foot to face 
Of beauty and grace, 

As I see her? — Yet the halo came, 

Or she had not lov’d me so. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xliv. 
The hands of beauty when they touch and thrill us 
All leave their imprint on ideas, and thus 
We get ideals. Dante, 1., 1. 

In realms of right 

With no such charms is wrong indued ; 

All beauty is the halo bright, 

The coming glow of God and good. 

Her Haughtiness . 

BEAUTY, THE ULTIMATE, SOUGHT BY ART 

But, sure 

As days roll up the sun, an hour must come 
When blazing blasts again shall shake these peaks, 
Shall pile them higher, level them to plains, 

Or melt them back to primal nothingness. 

Meantime their mission shall be what it is: 

To teach the world, not rest but, restlessness, — 

The aspiration and the aim of art 
That will not bide contented till the law 
Of thought shall supersede the law of things, 

And that which in the midnight of this world 
Is but a dream shall be fulfilled in days 
Where there is no more matter, only mind, 

And beauty, born of free imagination, 

Shall wait but on the sovereignty of spirit. 

West Mountain . 

BEAUTY, WHEN COMPLETE AND IDEAL 
Beauty is complete and ideal in the degree only in 


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A POETS CABINET 


which those results of it attributable to effects upon 
the ear or eye are combined with those attributable to 
effects upon the mind. Art in Theory , xm. 

BEES, BUZZING 

Men swarm’d, like bees, to buzz before, 
Prepar’d to die, they stung. 

The Lebanon Boys in Boston . 

BELGIUM 

The snappish gales that fret the channel’s waves 
Whirr’d soon the traveller toward the Belgian shore; 
Whose belfries peal each hour that labor craves 
Full half an hour before the hour is o’er. 

What thrift her fields evince! her art what beauty! 

But would her strong, rough Rubens had but guess’d 
The joy a wise man finds, as well as duty, 

In making art portray fair nature at her best. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xlii. 

BELLOW, BRAINS THAT 

These brains that bellow so about their pains, 

Prove mainly their own lack of brawn to bear them. 

Dante } I., I. 

BELLS OF THE TOWN 
Then, when the morn was breaking, 

On every hill and plain, 

In all the towns, we toll’d the bells, 

That all began with doleful knells, 

As though for Freedom slain. , 

Anon, they rang out madly 
What might have peal’d to be 
The land’s alarm-bell — only now 
They peal’d to hail the new-born vow 
Of men that would be free. 

Our First Break with the British. 
BENEVOLENCE SHOULD NOT BE UNLIMITED 
.... Why, he’s given his property away. 

.... Given everything away? 

.... Oh, no; not everything! Not such a fool as 
that! Not such a sponge, either! To live at the 
expense of the public in an almshouse makes a man as 
much of a public nuisance as to live in the same way 
in a palace. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


3t 


.... But, in this case, the judgment involves 
what seems rather complicated. You are not choosing 
between poverty — or, say, socialism — on the one side, 
and wealth — or, say, aristocracy — on the other side. 
You are trying to take a little from both sides. 

.... Yes; because both sides are made up of 
parts, and I don’t think my judgment will have done 
its perfect work until it has tried to distinguish be- 
tween some, at least, of these parts. A rational mind 
discriminates and selects, and discards only what’s 
of no use. Well, I try to be rational. So, on the one 
hand, I don’t accept socialism as a whole; because I 
believe in personal responsibility. I think every man 
has a right to the stimulus that comes from knowing 
that his own diligence and thrift will obtain for him 
certain possessions that he can call his own ; and can 
keep as his own; and, by and by, when unable to 
work, can use for the support of himself and his family. 
But, on the other hand, I’m not an aristocrat because 
I believe in communal responsibility — for others. I 
think no man has a right to excessive wealth, to put 
into his own coffers what is needed for the support of 
his fellowmen and their families. Hoarding up money 
beyond what one can use is like hoarding up fruit in 
the same way. It tends to rot. It makes the indi- 
vidual self-centered, inconsiderate, mean, immoral. 
It makes the community lose faith in republican in- 
stitutions, and fail to practice that love of humanity 
which underlies these institutions. 

What Money Can't Buy , iv. 

BEREAVED 

Then think not love is mortal, or can die. 

No floods can flow but it has power to brave, 

Too near in nature to the heaven on high, 

To sink resistless in an earthly wave, 

More strong than death, bereaved of loved ones living, 
True love will aim anon for all men’s good; 

For this its thought, time, strength, and substance 
giving,— 

Ah, could it find an aim sublimer, if it would? 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxxv. 


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BEREAVEMENT ( See AFFLICTION and TROUBLE) 

Whatever the promise of rest or of toil, 

There never can be an earthly soil, 

But flood and earthquake tear; 

There never can be an earthly air, 

But wind and lightning rend. 

Vain then to think of an earthly friend 
Whose love and help can last! 

For all, whenever their day be past, 

The air they breathe, the soil they tread 
Will close in a coffin and leave them dead. 

Love and Life , xvi. 

I brought back not alone what books could give, 
But in myself a sense of others’ wants, — 

For in my heart a wondrous wealth of love; 

Ay, wealth it was; though, like the ore in mines, 
It only proved that that which lived had died. 
What though my life, complete with her alone, 
Seem’d always rent? a weight of broken quartz 
That only gleam’d where it had fractur’d been? 
That weight was wealth that sparkled back to greet 
Each glance of sunshine. 

Ideals Made Real, lxv. 

BEREAVEMENT, LOSS OF A CHILD {see CHILD) 
How sad when the one we had led by the hand 
Who had looked to us for every demand 
Of body or soul has gone to the grave, 

And we must live, not die as we crave, 

But watch him pass to the sunless gloom 
Beyond that mile-stone mark of the tomb, 

And, led by those whom never he knew, 

Go journeying on the darkness through, 

As, all alone, 

He makes his quest 
For a home to own 
In the land of the best. 

Love and Life, xlvi. 
bias {see prejudice) 

Help on no ways nor words that extol 
The vise of a bias that binds the soul; 

No rank held up by holding down 


Caused that our school’s head, 

Already nodding o’er his noonday pipe, 

Should catch at sever’d dreams with one nod more, 
And so consent to our dreams. 


See page q8. 
























































































































r 









































































































SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


33 


True worth as an underling stript of his crown; 

No cause with a lie 
For a party-cry 

To catch the low or to court the high; 

No life with a creed 
That ends all the need 

Of knowing or growing in thought or deed. — 
Weigh well their worth; true dawnings of light 
Can abide your waiting and grow more bright. 
Weigh not, you prove the trend of my thought 
Your soul is a slave to be sold and bought. 

Whatever the Mission of Life may he. 

bigotry {see charity and modern) 

. . . . Eyes, they say, 

Made free to roam round all the world of thought 
Find views too strange 

.... To those not free to roam? — 

Who envy what they cannot see themselves? 

.... They say such hate what does not aid religion. 
.... Aid whose, and what? — their own? — and are 
they sure 

They do not make their own selves lords, forsooth, 
Because they wish to lord it over others? 

Cecil the Seer t I. 
BIG THING, TRYING TO LIFT A 
No one ever tried to lift a big thing, who didn’t risk 
its falling back on him. On Detective Duty , I. 

BIRD, IN A SNOW STORM 

Whirred like the moulting wings of some vast swan, 
The snow-blast broods above the landscape drear; 
But through the wild wind shivers, high and clear, 
The call of one lone bird that sings anon. 

Sing on, thou child of warmth and light, sing on! 

I know thy loneliness, I know thy cheer. 

Thy call will never bring one comrade near, 

Nor make the world about less chill and wan. 

But, oh, no tempest can outblow, sweet bird, 

Those drafts thine ardent spirit draws to bring 
The breath of heaven to fill thy trembling breast, 

So thrilled to voice the world’s Creator’s word! 

The Solitary Singer. 


3 


A POETS CABINET 


BIRDS OF PREY 

, . . Show us, as I think. 

Birds of another's feather — birds of prey. 

. . . In praying they do priest’s work. 

, . . Yes; in that — 

And making mortals humble. One with aught 
To plume himself on, will not go unplucked. 

Columbus , ii., 2. 
birth {see heredity) 

When the world began, 

What gave it light 

Was the touch of love’s electric might. 

That touch still brings, in the heavenly plan 
The spark of the spirit that makes man man. 

His life all starts in a flash of light, 

A gleam of glory, blessed and bright, 

The while within him is lighted a fire 
Where burns forever the soul’s desire; 

And all he owns that gives him worth 
Is that inward glow that shines for earth, 

And shows the love that gave it birth. 

Love and Life , xxxix. 

BITTERS 

No fetes are feasts with every course alike; 

And all fare better who begin with bitters. 

The Aztec God , I. 

BLADE 

Dull not the blade that carves at your own feast. 

Columbus , i., i. 

BLIZZARD 

With a scowling sky blue-black from a blow, 

And the whur of a giant in skirts of snow, 

The blizzard came howling ahead. The Blizzard. 
BLUSH 

Or blush anon with inward kindled fires 
To feel the flatteries breath’d from women’s lips. 

A Life in Song , Note v. 
Why, too, had she flush’d? — 

What subtle weapon had been used to cut 
Beneath the surface of her mien, and bring 
The heart-blood from its core? 

Ideals Made Real , xxv. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


35 


BOARDING 

And you now — you are living with him here? 

. . . . Yes, living! — Did you think that we were 
boarding? Cecil the Seer , hi., i. 

BOARDING HOUSE FOR SERVANTS, A RICH MAN’S HOME 

.... I should give up French cooking rather than 
run the risk every week of having a French revolution 
in my basement. 

.... Yes; but John 

.... John’s our old family butler, absolutely 
honest and faithful. 

.... But the cook says he ’ll leave if John stays. 

.... But John — why John must stay. 

.... Now you see the trouble you make? 

. ... I make? Oh, no mother, you make it. — 
Well, then, perhaps, both of us make it. We do it by 
trying to run a boarding-house for a lot of half-worked 
people whose resources of thought or feeling are ex- 
hausted the moment hands and feet cease pumping in 
order to fill them. A lazy booby wags his tongue for 
the same reason that a lazy dog wags his tail ; and he 
lashes indiscriminately whatever happens to be near. 
No wonder there are rows in the kitchen. 

What Money Can't Buy , ill. 
BOARDING HOUSE IN A COLLEGE TOWN 

They act like a set of students in a college-town 
boarding-house. They are away from home, and feel 
that they are not responsible if they fail to keep up the 
home-standard of respectability. 

Where Society Leads , I. 

bodies (see frame) 

Men may be best as they are; 

Our bodies may lenses be 
To focus a light with a source too far 
For earth its rays to see; 

And but for the finite forms we love 
We never might know of the light above. 

A Life in Song: Loving , XV. 

BONDSMAN 

The one that everybody’s bid can bind 
Is everybody’s bondsman. Columbus , i., 2. 


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A POETS CABINET 


BOOKS 

Again, desires that spurr’d his eager mind 

Would dash it through the lines of some chance book, 
Much thought to seize, and much to leave behind. 
Alas, how many truths did he o’erlook! 

How many rich-robed lies for guides he took! 

How dazed grew hope, that follow’d in the track 
Of forms that vanished! how his conscience shook, 
Charged by each innuendo’s base attack, 
Smooth-tongued as knaves are when they stab behind 
one’s back! 

A Life in Song: Daring , lviii. 

BOOKS, HYPNOTIC IN EFFECT 
Some men who always keep their minds on books 
see only what their writers have described; or when 
they think, think like hypnotic subjects whose ravished 
eyes yield sight to breed suggestion. 

Tuition for her Intuition , ill. 

BOTTLES, men’s BODIES LIKE 
Men’s bodies are like bottles; their heads on top 
like corks that seal the contents. If you can only fill 
the body up with what can make the whole thing be 
light-headed, one little shake will leave the contents 
stale as popped champagne — with no life left in it 
except what can be used for your own purposes. 

On Detective Duty , II. 

BOUQUET 

Only the stalks of an old bouquet, 

Colorless, faded, gone to decay, — 

Still they are dear for the joys they bore 
While they were blooming in days of yore. 

A Life in Song: Loving , I. 
For one who would himself be here, 

And for ourselves who hold you dear, 

We come, fair maid, to welcome you. 

For sun-bright eyes like yours we grew, 

For cheeks like yours, with ardor meet, 

Would flush, aglow their glow to greet; 

And up to you, our fragrance rare 
Is breathed from lips that burst in prayer. 

Our goddess dear, our sister sweet, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


37 


This meeting leaves our lives complete. 

Now dew may fail, or frost may sear, 

We fade, we die; but have been here. 

What the Bouquet Said. 
boy {see children and youth) 

But I would blend the purity 
Of her whom I adore 
With manly power for mastery 
And promise yet in store. 

So I would take the boy who roams 
Toward life, half understood, 

From thresholds of those holy homes 
That face alone the good; — 

A boy who has not reach’d the brink 
Where vice will cross his track, 

Whose wish that loathes the wish to drink 
Still keeps the tempter back; — 

A boy who hardly knows of ill, 

Or ill can apprehend, 

With cheeks that blush, with eyes that fill, 

And faith that fears no end. 

And oh, I know that those who love 
The purest part of joy, 

Would choose with me from all above 
The heaven that held my boy. 

A Phase of the Angelic. 

BOY-FRIENDS 

The kind was new; 

Not human, so angelic. Ay, that soul, 

As pure as loving, and as fine as frank, 

I half believe to-day, as I did then, 

Stood strange amid his comrades of the play 
As dogwood, wedded to the skies of spring, 

White in a wilderness of wintry pines. 

Ah me, could all find all on earth so dear, 

Christ’s work were common. I had died for him. 
In fact, to shield the rogue, I just escap’d 
That very fate a score of times or more, 

Bluft, bruis’d, and battling for him on the green. 

Ideals Made Real , hi. 


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A POETS CABINET 


You know boy-friends are shy: is it a trait, 

Their shielding of their hearts, that fits them thus 
For life-tilts of their manhood? — How we two 
Would rasp each other when the world look’d on! 
In truth, each seem’d to wear his nature’s coat 
The soft side inward, comforting himself, 

And turn the rough side only toward the world. 

If strangers chafed against it, yet oneself 
And friend were saved this. Idem. 

BOY-LOVERS OF ONE ANOTHER (see MATE) 
.... Since we two were boys, 

The only love that I have felt returned, 

Has been my love for you. 

.... And yet they say 

The love of woman 

.... Could that satisfy 

And thrill with aught so true, unselfish, pure? — 

I worship boyhood, thinking what we were. 

Dante , II., 2. 

In truth, I never see to-day a face 
Where flash the kindling feelings of a boy, 

But back of it, I seem to feel the warmth 
Of Elbert’s heart. No school-boy past me bounds 
But his dear presence comes to leap the years, 
And rush on recollection, with a force 
That brings from depths of joy, still’d long ago, 

A spray as fresh as dash’d from them when first 
They stream’d in cataracts. With love like his 
To flood its brim, my soul appear’d so full 
That, overflowing at each human touch, 

Its pleasures could not stagnate. 

Ideals Made Real , iv. 

I would that the boy whom thus I knew 
Had been of her kith and kin, 

And had shared her earthly nature too 
With that sweet soul within; 

For if so, I now could be sure as then 
That all of my hopes were true; 

And my faith could join with another’s again, 
And joy in the strength of two. 

A Life in Sons : Loving xix. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


39 


BOY, WHEN IN LOVE 

Why, a boy, 

A boy in love, could not more gracefully 

Let tumble forth from his embarrassed lips 

The whole sweet burden of his blushing cheeks, 

Than he did, pelting, helter-skelter, out 

Those metaphors at us, to vent his joy 

In welcoming our own! Cecil the Seer , ill., i. 

BOYS, NOT SOUGHT FOR 

.... Some man might want to speak to me, and 
what should I do then? 

.... Why, run. Then they would know you were 
a boy. 

.... He might run after. 

.... I should smile! — There’s none want boys as 
bad as that. They don’t run after them. We boys 
are thick as paving stones, and used like them to 
tramp on. There ’s no rush for us, except to rush us off. 
Ah, Miss, you’ll have a lark in these. The lark keeps 
flying and is safe. The Little Twin Tramps , n. 

BOYS THAT SMOKE AND DRINK 

A boy that smokes at your age and drinks whiskey 
comes carrying all about him like a weed, an air and 
odor no one can mistake. The shops avoid him, and 
the sports decoy him. The Two Paths, hi. 

BRAHMINISM 

But on a high, broad cliff his quick gait ceast; 

And thence, the while he pointed toward the east, 

My eyes could see — upon a greener field, 

Swept of the cumbering trees, and half conceal’d 
By clouds of smoke as white as was its own 
Pure marble hue — an altar; nor alone. 

Soon, standing near it, where the air had clear’d 
A white-robed multitude of priests appear’d, • 

And multitudes about them ranged in line, 

And multitudes of victims, fowl and kine, 

And, ever and anon, a listening ear 
Some vagrant fragments of men’s praise could hear, 
Soft interrupted strains that stroked the air 
As though vibrations from the wings of prayer. 

Then, as I sought to learn the cause of all, 


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A POETS CABINET 


The altar-smoke that, ere this, like a pall 
Had rested o’er it, rose afar and spread, 

Like Paribanou’s tent, o’er every head, 

Unfolding far past all foretoken’d size. 

Yet still the fumes unfolded, till the skies 
Were black as when that drapery thick hung o’er 
The pyre of dead Pompeii, lit of yore 
By her fierce executioner, the grim 
Vesuvius. Like that did this mass dim 
All things except its own form hovering 
Above the earth, and swiftly covering 
The moon and struggling stars: but lo, ere long 
’T was limb’d anew, the while a wind-blast strong 
Rent from its ragged outlines threatening forms, 
Whirl’d like tornadoes, torn from clouds in storms. 
These then, that seem’d o’er half the earth to lower, 
Were seen to be the arms of some vast power 
That floated on the air : and soon behold 
Their fingers far seem’d stretching off to mould 
The yielding texture of the pliant space. 

“ Now watch, ” my guide said ; “ while on high they place 
The stars call’d surges, and the earth, mirtlok, 

And patals of the lower realm, where flock 
The evil bands of Nardman. This is he, — 

Great Brahma, who above the Indian sea 

Once on the lotus lay, when truth began 

To gild the dreams of youth, and guide the man. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xvm. 
BRAWN 

Say what you may of thought, 

Man’s brawn was given him as well as brain, 

And there are things to tramp for, things to clutch, 
And days for doing. They are brighter, too, 

At times, than nights for dreaming. Dante , ill., 2. 

BREED 

The strength that flows from a soulless mould 
May bring me a breed, to my cost, 

Thick-skinn’d, thick-limb’d, with brawn that is bold 
In a world where love is lost. 

All hell may hail their brawlings loud, 

Brute-headed, bull-necked, beast-eyed, — 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


4i 


A herd to make the devil proud 
Of the way God’s wish is defied. 

Accurs’d of God, and a curse to man, 

As have ever been all of their kin, 

Whose lives have only fulfill’d a plan 
To thwart the spirit within. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxi. 

BRILLIANCY IN ART 

We sometimes hear it intimated that a foremost 
characteristic of the artistic mind is brilliancy. Let us 
accept this word. Brilliants concentrate and disperse 
the light. The artist gathers in the truth which is 
manifested through the appearances of nature, truth 
which is ordinary to an ordinary mind, and, forcing 
it through his own limiting but also illuminating 
individuality, makes it flash forth with illustrating 
wisdom on all the world about him. 

The Representative Significance of Form , xiv. 

BRILLIANCY WITHOUT STABILITY 

I have known of men 
Whose thought would flash like lightning, lighting up 
Half heaven besides the whole of earth; and yet 
A whirlwind, did you trust to its caress, 

Would never lead you in a madder dance. 

Columbus , I., I. 

BRILLIANT CHANCE 
It were a brilliant chance! 

Yes, far too brilliant 
For moths to meet with, and escape a scorching. 
No wick-light dazzles him. He knows the sun. 

Cecil the Seer, 1. 

BRINGING UP, OF BOYS 
.... No boys like him are wholly bad. 

.... But only not brought up well, eh? 

.... Are not brought up at all, Truth is are kept 
down badly. You trample on a growing vine, it grows 
up crooked. The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 

BROAD 

His broad desires in broadest fields would roam, 
Where’er was worth his nature to attract. 


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A POET'S CABINET 


While ignorance with him smiled and seem’d at home, 
And wisdom would not know a trait he lack’d. 

A Life in Song: Serving , hi. 
Besides, broad views alone give men offense. 

What tho’ on life’s wide sea loom stars and shoals, 
Both theories for thought and facts for sense? 

Alas for those whose too well-balanced souls 
Let not the aspect of but one view draw them ! 

Think you that men will yield to such their trust? 
Most men are curs, and let small brute-will awe them 
Far more than great-soul’d thought, however wise or 
just. Idem , vn. 

BROOK 

Anon a brook before my vision spread, 

It seem’d a path that fairy feet could tread, — 

A path of silver, o’er a jewell’d ground, 

Which far away toward heaven-like mountains wound 
White mists were clinging to the brook’s bright side. 
Like spirit-bands I thought them, whom its tide 
Lull’d softly, couch’d amid the dark-leaved trees, 
Awaiting bugles of the morning breeze. 

And all the rush of daybreak sweeping by, 

To bear them off in glory to the sky. 

Idem , Seeking , hi. 

EROTHER 

A man alone? — You yet a brother are 
To many a soul that sails the sea of life, 

Where oft the horizon trembles with the change 
Of wind and wave; and hope, too hale, oft mourns 
Fair promises, like skies that fade in fog. 

Ideals Made Real , Lin. 
BRUTES AND THINKERS 
The surest proof we men are not all fools, 

Is in the way we bruit them when we find them. 
.... Ay, and the surest we are not all brutes, 

Is in the way our thinkers make us mind them. 

Columbus , I., i. 

BRUTES, HUMAN 

A bear, you know, has hair upon his cheek, 

And growls, and, now and then, stands up and hugs. 

I like men who can prove themselves no brutes. 

Dante , I., i. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


43 


BRUTES VS. REASONING BEINGS 
A man should use his reason. Are we brutes? 

. . . . No; — worse than brutes when he comes. 
Brutes, at times, 

To save their lives, will turn upon a man. 

But we — five score to one, but all afraid 
To call our souls our own. Let him appear, 

We fly like cry-girls from a buzzing bug 
One touch could crush in no time. 

Idem , in., 2, 

BUBBLES 

Outward gains bring only a show 
Gleaming in bubbles a breath can blow. 

All the glitter that ever they make, 

Flashing or dashing away as they break, 

All is as nothing, unless men find, 

Within and without them and broader in kind, 
The light enlightening soul and mind. 

Love alone is the sun-bright air, 

Filling the bubbles, and making them fair, 

And shining on, when they all have burst, 

As brightly as when it lighted them first. 

A Life in Song: Loving y v. 

BURIED 

Dying as a stranger dies, 

And buried like a man to be forgot. 

Idem , Finale . 


BUSINESS 

Business 

Is like a cyclone, fills our paths with dust 
And bustle ; yet men say it comes to clear them 

And bring us rest and comfort. Humph! 

Dante , n., I. 


BUSINESS SUCCESS 

The tides when highest fall the soonest. Success in 
business depends on buying when others want to sell 
— so buying cheap ; and selling when the others want 
to buy. The Two Paths, n. 

call, the spirit’s {see soul and spirit) 

For him who hears anon by day or night the spirit’s call, 
Naught is fitting save to be and do and speak the 
truth to all. 


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Let the world refuse to heed it, — he at least is not to 
blame ; 

For the truth still rules his action, and the heavens 
direct his aim. 

Let the world with force oppose him, — he may lead 
a worthy life; 

And his words may prove prophetic, tho’ his works 
insure him strife. 

Let him make mistakes in methods, — who can learn 
these till he tries? 

And the world that brings him failure, makes him 
fail to make him wise. 

He alone can hope to prosper, who has learned to use 
the light, 

Ray by ray, that shows the spirit, step by step, the 
way of right ; — 

Only he, who, when his dreaming lures him toward 
ideals rare. 

Wakes to gird and venture on, to be, to do, at least 
to dare. A Life in Song: Dreaming , xliii. 

And so, when ceaseless calls appeal, 

One dare not from them turn away. 

Nay, nay, he must some work essay, 

However slight, in every fray. 

Who blows a bugle, beats a drum, 

Or jingles rhymes, may rouse in some 
That spirit which, in truth’s grand war, 

Gains all this life is given for ! 

Idem , Doubting , xxxvi, 
Let then the Spirit’s voice be heard, 

Tho’ warbling only like a bird 
Vague sounds that hardly hint a word. 

The men who hear that call on high, 

I will believe, if toward the sky 
They turn, and think that love is nigh, 

Are bless’d tho’ they but heave a sigh. 

Idem, xliv. 

CAP AND BELLS, ATTRACTING ATTENTION 
You think a fool in cap and bells is not so big a fool 

as he that never wears the cap and bells, yet wants to 

get the world’s attention. Go on, boy, I will listen. 

The Little Twin Tramps , n. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


45 


CAPTIVES, LED 

So now they held three captives; 

And these, by daggers led, 

They slipt about the camp and out, 

As needles flit with thread. 

How Barton Took The General. 

CAPTURE OF A CRUISER 
They came to Fenner’s dock; 

And found, awaiting there, 

Eight yawls, that Brown had lent the town, 
In Captain Whipple’s care. 

The crews that mann’d the yawls 
Had muffled every oar; 

And they, and men who join’d them then, 

All told, were sixty-four. 

Their arms were pick’d with care 
From all their friends could loan ; 

And all the yawls, for cannon balls, 

Were stock’d with paving-stone. 

They battled wind and tide, 

Three hours amid the gloom. 

The midnight pass’d. They saw, at last, 

The cruiser’s bulwarks loom. 

" Who comes?” her watch call’d out. 

"Who comes!” her captain cried. 

Then swift alarm’d, in tones that arm’d, 

Her crew that toward him hied. 

"Move off!” her captain roar’d, 

His pistol aiming well; 

Then fired — alack! fire answer’d back; 

He started, stagger’d, fell. 

And then, as dark and fierce 
As tidal waves, where fleets 
Are whelm’d and whirl’d and downward 
hurl’d 

Till death their deed completes, 

Our men, at Whipple’s cry, 

"Up, up!” clear’d every check; 

And dash’d and leapt and slash’d and swept 
Across the cruiser’s deck. 


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A POETS CABINET 


But hold! — her men were gone. 

Ours held the deck alone ; 

Their work had done, nor fired a gun ; 

The cruiser’s crew had flown. 

“Surrender here!” rang out; 

And out the cabin glanced 
At first a few, then all the crew; 

Then one and all advanced. 

The Last Cruise of the Gaspee . 

CARE 

What joy to feel that now it all is over! 

.... All never will be over in this world. 

The great care passes, but trails lesser cares 

That aggregate no less of worry. 

Columbus , IV., I. 

CARE-TAKING, AND A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP 
Humph, what a fool a fellow is for being envious of the 
rich ! — They want to seize this house and smash it. One 
only owns the thing he keeps. A man might think he 
owned the world, if everything he saw he tried to keep as 
safe as when he found it. The Little Twin Tramps , 11. 

CARICATURE ( See DONKEY) 

A caricature, when popular, is a conclusive proof 
that what is caricatured is popularly thought to be 
ridiculous. When this is something to which all have 
been accustomed all their lives, it indicates the skepti- 
cism that may lead to reformation. 

The Laws of English Orthography. 

CATCHING 

You want to free this fox, eh, for the fun of catching 
him again? You want to play your game of hell? 
A sinner saved, you think, may fall once more? 

The Two Paths , I. 

CATHEDRAL VS. CHARACTER AS SOURCES OF INFLUENCE 
You but wander’d as the lamb; 

My spotless, worldling-mediator, you! — 

It wander’d? — yes; it cross’d a threshold chill; 

A proud cathedral enter’d; there found one 
Too pleased with what he had, to gaze outside. 

To him those arches low seem’d high as heaven; 
And all the sweet and sunny air without, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


47 


When strain’d through stain’d and smoke-wreathed 
window-panes, 

Gleam’d lurid as were hell. This man spied you : 

He saw you shun him — leave him. He pursued — 
Out, past the doorway — and he found God’s world 
So much more broad than walls named after Him!” 

Ideals Made Real , lxxii. 
CAUSE, THE 

“I lead. You follow. Should I fall, 

Move on : my corpse may give 
At least a vantage ground ! Move up : 

The cause, it is, must live!” Ethan Allen. 
CAUTION 

A man who lives for others, not for self, 

Has little fear for self ; yet care for them 
May give him caution. Columbus , hi., i. 

Our nearest friends, 

In judging us, our works, not wishes, take, — 
Works oft as far from what the soul intends 
As dreamland from the life to which we wake. 

Full oft our traits that temper it may make 
Impure the coloring of our purest aim. 

So need we caution, and for truth’s own sake; 
Lest those who watch love’s fire within us flame 
Shall doubt if it from love or something baser came. 

A Life in Song: Daring , lxix. 
CAUTIOUS 

If when one come to pluck a rose, he finds 
It grows on thorns, he may become more cautious. 

Dante , i., 2. 

CAVALRY CHARGE, A HERO IN A 
You should have seen him when the battle came. 

He led the last charge, speeding on a steed 
Wellnigh as white as was the air it slid through, 

His form bent down as if to hurl his head 
Against their lines, and by sheer force of brain, 

Burst through them. Faster than the following wind 
He flew, as if the blast that urged him on 
Were some last trump of Gabriel’s, and the soul 
Could fear no ills, for it had passed beyond them. 

Idem. 


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CEMETERY, A 

The live-oak’s bending boughs, gray-draped in moss, 
Like mourning sentinels, guard the winding ways ; 

But under them each grave the eye surveys 
Is wreathed with flowers that breezes gently toss. 

Ah, if the bowed oaks fitly frame our loss, 

Beneath them crowd, too, symbols of the bays 
To crown our loved ones in those far, fair days 
That nights end not and storms can never cross. 
Though bodies fail, souls need not meet defeat. 

Nay, let our spirits rise above like these 

Blithe birds that, winged from out sweet flowery beds, 

Soar up and sing through clouds of moss-hung trees, 

Sing as of dreams of beauty, sure to greet 

The slumber on which God such beauty spreads. 

Bonaventure Cemetery , Savannah . 
There are few kindred places on the earth 
Where rest as many great men as lie here ; 

Or, in proportion, more men to revere 
Of those whose learning was outweighed by worth. 
Not strange then that, at many a household-hearth 
And student desk, our generation fear 
To change or question aught these men held dear; 
As if, forsooth, a saint could need new birth! 

Princeton Cemetery . 
CHANGE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
And times that do not like a cackling hen, 

And seek to fill their coops with fowl that crow, 
Will not get many eggs. Cecil the Seer, I. 

CHANGE IN ASPECTS OF SPIRITUAL TRUTH {see ADVANCE, 

progress, and wisdom) 

So, when life’s last grand sunrise gilds our night, 

And heaven’s wide opening gates flash forth their light, 
Who knows what forms on earth may be the first 
To catch the glories that shall o’er us burst? 

With all our boasts, life is not perfect yet ; 

Nor are all forms within which truth is met 
Transparent to reveal its hidden worth ; 

Nor large enough to hold it, when from earth 
It springs toward heaven. The safeguards fram’d 
around 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


49 


The sprout when first it starts to leave the ground, 

Now that it presses upward and about 

And from its narrow frame is bursting out, — 

Can these that held the twig in, hold the tree? 

Or think you life a force that can endure, 

And never change, nor ever grow mature? 

A Life in Song: Seeking , LI. 

CHARACTER, DETERMINED BY DOING, NOT FEELING 
Some men there are have murder in their hearts 

Through all their lives; and if they murder not 

.... They may be rightly numbered with the saints. 
Not what our lower nature makes us feel, 

But what our higher nature lets us do, 

Determines what we are. Dante , 11., 2. 

CHARITY FOR OTHERS* OPINIONS ( See MODERN) 
Ay, when men desire the whole truth, each one’s 
nature like a chart 

Shall unfold to show what only all together can impart. 
Till that time, though those about us vie to be the 
foes of truth, 

Let it be its own defender; they will learn in time, 
forsooth, 

How much more may spring to light, where only won- 
dering fancies teem, 

Than where listlessness in stupor slumbers on with- 
out a dream ; 

How much more may be discerned, where love too 
lightly waives distrust, 

Than where mad intolerance gags a pleading doubt 
with naught discuss’d. 

They will learn that wise men find that minds when 
trusted most, confess 

Where are hid the springs of thought which he who 
moves them needs to press, 

Learn that those who war with words must heed, ere 
crown’d with victory, 

Both the right array’d against them, and the wrong; 
for charity, 

First in logic as in worship, leads the mind’s trium- 
phant train. 

’T is the Christ, not Aristotle, holds the scepter of the 
brain. A Life in Song: Watching , xix. 


4 


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CHARM, UNCONSCIOUSNESS OF 

Unconscious of their charm, the wind-swayed trees 
Their welcomes wave; and hills with flower-lined ways 
Rise dawn-like, and, bedimmed with morning haze 
Like incense visible, make sweet the breeze. 

And, all unconscious of their charm as these, 

The fair, sweet children pass me in their plays, 

Nor dream that seeing them one joy conveys 
To me whom they feel no desire to please. 

Ah, thus unconscious, must each human will 
Inspire enchantment in a fellow-soul? 

Vain then to hope that our mere toil or skill 
Can gain our life or art its lordliest r61e. 

The spirit’s touch that stirs the spirit’s thrill 
Starts in a source too deep for man’s control. 

Unconscious Charm. 

CHARMER 

A wretch has come, as vile as he is ugly; 

And if I were the charmer of a snake, 

I could not shrink from touch more horrible. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

CHEST 

How broad his chest is! — Look! — and how it heaves! 
Hard work, I think, but thrilling work as well, 

To keep inside of it a spirit grand 
As his! Dante, i., 2 . 

child {see boy and youth) 

While a man can doubt 
The truth within him, nor show it without, 

The child holds fast, unfetter’d by lies, 

A faith that he never has dared to despise, 
Expression that knows no other control 
Than that of the Maker who moves the soul, 

A beauty of wisdom that works to obey 
A holy, because a natural way; 

And that may he have that a man may not. 

Of Such Is the Kingdom. 
The truth is trite that earthly trust can wend 
Two ways alone in which ’t is ne’er beguil’d: 

When, journeying with it, moves a like train’d friend 
Or, this impossible, an untrain’d child. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xxi. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


51 


CHILD, A DECEASED {see BEREAVEMENT) 

Oh, surely love must care 
For child-life everywhere! 

Kind hands, they must be there, 

So soft, so fond! 

They must keep my child for me, 

Forever a child to be, 

Where forever a home I see 
In the life beyond. 

In the Life Beyond. 

CHILDREN 

More sweet than bursting buds and sprouting grain 
That bring new life to view when spring draws 
near; 

More bright than summer suns that gild the plain, 
Ere autumn crowns with gold the old grown year; 
More sweet, more bright to me appear the graces 
That fill the spring of childhood's opening worth; 
More sweet, more bright the smiles of kindly faces 
That in the home make ripe the fruits of heaven on 
earth. A Life in Song: Serving , xvi. 

Our children that make our houses anon 
Weird mirrors in which, with scarcely a blur, 

Our own lost lives we see as we were. 

The Last Home Gathering. 
.... Have you children too? 

.... Oh no. 

.... Congratulations! Few things make a slower 
coach than crowds of passengers. 

.... No, really no! 

.... Have known a lot of homes that were so 
loaded down. Some children climb their parent’s 
knees as parasites climb trees — you never see them for 
the parasites. On Detective Duty , hi. 

CHILDREN, REPRESENTATIVE 

The little children of a house, like little drops of 
dew, not only flash the light about them, but they 
image, too, the source from which it comes. So one 
can read a parent’s or a teacher’s traits through what 
the children show by thus reflecting them. 

Idem , 1. 


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One hates to have her children tagging round. You 
know some people always judge us by them, as if they 
advertised us, like the tags that we forget to cut from 
our new capes. Idem, hi. 

CHILDREN, SCRATCH OR SPONGE 
All children, too — too sharp, or else too soft. They 
either scratch you, or they sponge upon you. 

.... They give a scrubbing, though, that keeps 
us clean. The Two Paths , ill. 

children’s and parent’s thoughts 
Our children, when we feed and dress them well, 
may trot along contented where our bodies are leading 
them, but never where our thoughts. These do not 
walk but fly; and, where they wing, they leave no 
tracks behind them. Even those who try to follow 
can not often do it. Tuition for her Intuition , I. 

children’s views of life 
Lo, feebly rises 
A voice that wails, 

As life surprises 
And lifts the veils 

From the eyes of a babe that little prizes 
An unsought birth 
In a lone chill earth 

Where it weeps and wonders what life is worth! 
The eyes draw back from the points of the light 
That glance from a world that is all in a glitter. 
The cheeks to mysteries huge look fright. 

The swaddling chafes and the cups are bitter. 
The small hands clutch for motes of the air, 

For plaits of the dress, for folds of the bed; 

But the marvels move and mingle and tear, 
Redoubled by every shred. 

Soon, limbs that balance the tottering brain 
Fall down in the pathway damp with the rain; 

Or fly with shrieks from the boisterous joys, — 

The barking and bounding of dogs and boys, 

And wheels incessantly grinding out noise. 

And if, indeed, the flowers be sweet, 

The garden is close to the long, wide street, 

And all the big houses, and who can they be 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


53 


The smileless people so stern to see? 

The lone little being, bewildered by needs 
And thoughts it can speak not, or nobody heeds, 
Ah, where can it find any respite or rest, 

Till cradled, anon, on its mother’s breast, 

Its faith a feeling by none withstood; 

Its hope that of saints in God and in good. 

Love and Life , iv., v. 

CHOICE, FOR LIFE {see CONVERSION, PRIEST, REGENERA- 
TION) 

There comes a time that none can escape, 

When each for himself a choice must make, 

Must turn to a path that is right or is wrong, 

And the path that he takes is a path life-long. 
What though some weak, mild memory know 
Not the hour nor the day that tested it so? 

What though some shrink from the woes before 
With a shock that is never forgotten more? — 

All noted their paths, and thought of the change 
Till nothing that came seem’d wholly strange. 

Love and Life , xvii. 
CHOOSE, LEARNING TO, AT MATURITY 
Between youth’s immature credulity, 

That dares to think but what some guardian thinks, 
And manhood’s faith mature that thinks for itself, 

A realm there is where will must learn to act 
Through doubt and danger; where the character, 
First wean’d from oversight, must learn to choose. 
Then, like a tottering child it yearns to cling 
To one whose greater power can for it act. 

Its mood determines that to which it clings. 

Some girls are giddy: — they embrace a lover 
And some are gloomy: — they beset a priest. 

Haydn , XL. 

CHRIST, THE 

.... But what then of the Christ? 

.... Did He not say 

He lived in spirit ere He lived on earth? — 

.... He said He came for others. 

.... Do you think 

A spirit such as His would need to come 


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A POETS CABINET 


For His own good? 

. . . . And yet that sacrifice? — 

. ... He sacrificed the spirit-life for life 
On earth, and life on earth for spirit-life. 

. . . . And but fulfilled a common r61e? 

. . . . Not common, 

Did He fulfill our spirit’s best ideal ; 

For spirits live in thought. How can they know 
Of any God beyond their thought of him? 

. . . . But if they know the Son? 

. . . . They know, at best, 

A “Son of Man,” as well, too, as “of God,” — 

In spirit one with Him, but not in frame. 

. . . . And yet a “Saviour” — 

. . . . What inspires, but spirit? — 

Or saves, but inspiration? He — enough — 

All must move upward would they find the Christ. 

Cecil the Seer , n., 2 . 

CHRIST AND HIS FOLLOWERS 

Ask me not to limit thus the Christ. 

How dare I? — if our churches teach the truth, 

If He incarnated the sum of life 
And spirit of all good, — His holiness 
His wholeness, and His perfectness, the proof 
Of what He was? Nor dare I limit those 
Who follow Him. — Why may they not live His, 
Not aiming here nor there, but everywhere 
To make the most of all God meant them for. 

Ideals Made Real , xlvii. 
CHRISTLIKE 

“Whatever your churches or priests may claim, 
When making their worldly rolls, 

Those made by God for heaven will name 
The men that have Christlike souls.” 

The Religion of Rescue. 

church ( see form and spirit and worship) 

A church the home of all that hope has taught, 

Or faith has felt, or love and grace have wrought, 
On earthly floods the ark that saves the soul. 

How blest its halls, and its divine control, 

Where youths’ unfolding natures learn to pray, 


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55 


And move through life in heaven’s appointed way! 
How blest its reverent rites, — the quiet throng, 

The pealing organ and the mutual song! 

And, after praises, prayers, and wise advice, 

The still walk home, and earthly paradise! 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xliii. 
Believe me, whatsoe’er has pass’d away, 

Of temple-service or of priestly sway, 

’T is well the church, our synagogue, remains 
Wherein each soul from other souls obtains 
Interpretations, varied with each mood, 

Of truth that else might not be understood. 

No single man could know, so Israel thought, 

The whole mind of the Spirit. Hence each sought 
To supplement his truth by charity 
Which heeds what all report. How righteously 
Could we in all that all men know rejoice! 

They serve the church who serve the Spirit’s voice. 

Idem , xlv. 

We are few, but what are numbers? — 

This church may proof supply 
That right may move to triumph 
With only one — to die! 

The Crown's Fight against the Town’s Right. 

Or church ! — Must it then crucify the soul 
To save appearances? the body? form? 

The Christ gave up all these to save the soul. 

’T is treason when His churches join the world, 

And courting smiles from bigotry appeased, 

And grinning hell that holds the whole its own, 
Preach up the crucifixion of the soul 
To save the body, save the outward form. 

A church is His no more, whose rites or creeds 
Keep souls untrue to truth within that shows 
God’s tempering there, the touch that makes man man. 

Ideals Made Real , lxii. 

CHURCH, CONSERVATISM OF 

Come, come, the church is wise, perhaps, to put 
Her brake on wheels that else might whirl us down, 
But how about those wheels when mounting up? 

Columbus , i., i. 


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CHURCH, ITS INFLUENCE 

The church can but confirm a fact that is, — 

A love that lives already in the soul. 

Not outside hands, though reaching down from heaven, 
Can push inside of it what is not there, 

Nor keep love inside, would it then pass out. 

Dante , I., I. 

CHURCH UNITY 

When shall men strive to find a wiser way 
Of warfare, than, with hostile ranks at bay, 

To turn from these, and with the corps contend 
That on their own side their own cause defend? 
What if corps-colors differ? Loyal hearts 
May cherish and advance through better arts 
Their church, — the cause of truth. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xlvi. 
He sought to move mankind 
Through moving unseen springs of love behind 
Man’s thought and deed. His church, assuredly, 
Were but like Him if seeking unity 
Not in the mask that hides whatever strife 
Disturbs the soul, but in the inward life. — 

Idem, xliv. 

CIRCUMSTANCE 

On earth men cannot choose their soul’s relations, 

But riding toward success must bridle circumstance. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xxm. 
Give blind men sight. At first their new- viewed sun 
Will stand still in the heaven. But give them time, 
That sun will set and rise. Then give them space, 

Lift them a thousand miles above the soil, 

It may do neither. Columbus , II., 3. 

CITY LIFE 

Your eternal and infernal grind for gold here is about 
as deafening as mills are when they pound it from the 
rocks. 

.... The city is not still, you think, or slow 

.... Or comfortable. Take your streets and 
street cars. All clogging up with crowds that pour 
down out the twenty stories of your sky-scrapers, a 
man might better risk his breath and body when 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


57 


slipping down inside a load of wheat just emptying in 
a great grain elevator. 

.... You scarcely seem to like our modern im- 
provements. 

.... They do not all improve. 

The Two Paths, hi. 
Ay, far from pining after city-life, 

Where things moved not so slowly, as they said, 
Our folk had found enough of stir and strife 

In this more quiet life that here we led. 

We might but watch the seasons as they sped; 

Yet some new task or sport gave each its leven; 

And, whether suns or storms were overhead, 
Compared with city-air, all stench and steven, 
Although outside their world, our own seem’d nearer 
heaven. A Life in Song: Daring, xxm. 

CITY LIFE AND AIR 

I think the rich should be contented when they 
own the earth; not try to appropriate all the air as 
well. 

.... You like the country air the best then, eh? 

.... There was a time I did. To-day the country 
is filled with motors shuttling to and fro, and weaving 
shrouds of dust and gasoline to bury everything that 
once was fresh and sweet. The Two Paths , hi. 

CITY LIFE AND CONCEALMENT 

.... They still are in the city. 

.... Why stay here? 

.... To hide, for one thing. For an active frame, 
a moving screen is better than a fixture; and there is 
nothing like a crowd to keep an individual incon- 
spicuous. Idem. 

CITY LIFE AND OBSERVATION 

The stories of a city life are printed in types of many 
different climes and classes ; and those who often meet 
strange characters get used to not interpreting their 
meaning. It would not be so in a little village. 


So I fear, when I see men striving to mold 
The forms of the new after those that are old, 


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While all true life grows better and better, 

That classical models a modern may fetter. 
Small virtue has one with no hope in his heart, 
And little of merit, if none in his art. 

The Artist's Aim. 


CLASSICS, THE 

Let stay thy “classics”! No one not a fool 
To get new learning need forget the old; 

And minds, like fruit-trees, bear their best when 
grafted. Princeton University. 

CLEARNESS IN EXPRESSION 

Shell your thoughts before 
You fling them at us — are so hard to crack! 

You surely would not have them crack our skulls? 

Dante , I., I. 


CLIMBING VS. JUMPING 

A man who is always content to climb, never gets 
along as fast as one who risks an occasional jump ; but 
he is much less likely to miss his aim and fall. 

Where Society Leads , I. 


CLINGING NATURE OF GIRLS 
But we, poor girls, too trusting natures have. 

Weak parasites at best, each tall stout man 
Seems just the thing that we should cling about. 

But, dear, I think that half these trunks give way: — 
The wonder is we dare to cling at all! Haydn , xx. 


CLOTHES AND CHARACTER 
.... A noble race, who live there in a state 
Almost of Paradise, their wants but few 
And nature so profuse — I tell you truth — 

They neither toil nor spin. 

. . . . Nor spin? Why how 

About their clothing? 

. . . . Is not needed. 


What? 


. ... Oh, you get used to that! 

. . . . Then how about — 


Their character? 

.... Is not so much a thing 

Of clothes as Europeans think, perhaps. 
.... But then 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


59 


.... The Turks keep faces veiled; turn all 
The body into private parts — what for? 

If ill-desire be fruit of thinking, germed 
In curiosity, to clear away 
Some underbrush, and let in light might help 
To blight the marsh-weed, and reveal, besides, 

Part of the beauty that brought bliss to Eden. 

.... You mean 

.... That nothing like a length of robe, 

Material in substance and in sense, 

Can stole an anti-spirit-ministry. 

It bags what heaven made that the world may deem 
The bag well baited for a game of hell. 

.... You talk in riddles. 

. . . Read a page or two 

From human nature, they are solved. 

Columbus , iv., I. 

A true lady never is civil to one on account of his 
dress. For my part, I wish that all men, who ever 
expect to be married, could get into a woman’s clothes 
before they get into her clutches. 

.... And what would they find, pray, in there? 
.... Find, first, a good deal of sham. You know 
what a maid is? 

.... What? 

.... Why, what but a thing that is made ? 

The Ranch Girl , iv. 

There are some society women who in character 
often seem just what they are in appearance. Three- 
fourths of their substance is dress; and all of the soft 
sleek satin and silk is on the outside. 

.... And what on the inside, pray? 

.... Well, very extensively, pins. Idem . 

CLOUDS 

The sunset? — Ah, what comes on earth so bright, 
So beautiful as clouds? — There were no clouds 
Where one could always look and see the heaven. 

Haydn , lvii. 

CLUB 

Suppose we club together — ay, let fly 

Our blows at him together — down him sooner! 

Columbus , i., 3. 


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A POETS CABINET 


CO-EDUCATION 

.... You would not open then our college-doors 
To women? 

.... Why not? 

.... Why, our boys and girls 

Might think of love! 

.... That would be no new thing; 

And, being wont to walk in love, when young, 

They might be much less prone to fall in love, 

In ways not wise, when older. Cecil the Seer , I. 

.... And you would have them like each other? 
.... Yes. 

It seems important if they are to marry. 

Like ought to go with like. And paths that push 
Young men and maids together, whet their wits 
And make their weddings wise ones. Idem . 

A brotherly or sisterly regard 
Grows up from family relationship. 

Train boys and girls together, side by side, 

As in one loyal household, holding all 

Humanity, and then, perchance, may love’s dishonor 

Seem foul as incest, and imperilers of it, 

No longer vehicles of life humane, 

Unsouled of self-control, all flag themselves 
The death-trucks that they are, and make health 
scud 

From their contagion as from carrion. 

. . . . You mean 

.... The young are not so trained in Spain — 

Not schooled to know each other, soul by soul, 

And nothing but the soul can outweigh sense. 

Columbus , II., i. 

COLLEGE MEN IN NON-COLLEGE SURROUNDINGS 
I sometimes regret our sending our boy to college. 
This having in the same family two kinds of products, 
— one educated and one uneducated, — is risky — is 
apt to turn out like our planting together in our 
garden two kinds of corn. The kind meant to be 
sweet had too much pop in it, and the kind meant 
to pop had too much sweet. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl y I. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


61 


COLOR-HARMONY IN DRESSING 
How did you choose that color for your cape, too? 
Outside the clouds that veil the suns at evening, I 
never saw such contrasts as between that cape and 
skirt; and then, inside of it {handling the cape), with 
these flaps hanging here like little doors. I say it is a 
cute thing in us women to make ourselves all bright 
and tidy here ! It seems a fitting gateway then to that 
which holds the heart ; ay, ay, and homes our love. 

The Two Paths , II. 

COLUMBUS 

Is from Genoa; 

A mathematician, studied at Pavia. 

Since then, till now, for more than twenty years, 

A sailor and a soldier — in the scrubs 
At Naples, Tunis, famous for his fights 
Against the infidel — last year, the man 
Who clampt his frailer bark against a huge 
Venetian galley, and, when both took fire, 

Driven to the waters, holding but an oar, 

Swam in to Lisbon; and that oar of his, 

All that he brought here, may yet prove to be 

The scepter-symbol of a mightier sway 

Than your King ever dreamed of. Columbus , i., I. 

I can wait forever 

The light is in me. But could you see through 
These forms that cloak it, worse than worst of rags, 
Discourtesy, suspicion, and contempt 
Of those who know Columbus as the fool? 

Idem , I., 2. 

COMIC TREATMENT, DUE TO POPULARITY 
.... Why, mama has been publicly disgraced. 
They say the soldiers seized her — knocked her hat 
lop-sided. Think! And how she must have looked ! 
.... Yes, what a picture for the comic papers! 
.... The comic papers are but incidents. They 
mainly make the smile a little broader with which we 
greet a popular favorite. 

.... They hurt 

.... Why any more so than the tickling that we 
give to little children, when we like them? 

Tuition for her Intuition, 11. 


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A POETS CABINET 


COMMERCE 

Soon shall winds that leave the sky arouse the waves 
of every strand, 

And the sails of friendly commerce hail the ports of 
every land. 

Soon shall throb the tramp of labor, and the whir of 
work be wheel’d 

Where a host of emigration camp on every vacant field ; 

Where shall wise men aid the unwise; and as hand to 
hand they toil, 

Train, anon, the fruits of culture in their souls as in 
the soil. 

More and more the host advances, though but lower 
gains it sought, 

Bridging vales and felling forests for the paths of love 
and thought, 

Making earth a human frame, with ribs of steel and 
nerves of wire, 

Destin’d soon to thrill responsive at the touch of one 
desire. 

Learning, duty, love, are coming. Toil ye on, aspiring 
souls, 

On to where unroll before you, grander methods, 
grander goals. 

Comes a day in which the sun shall burn the mists 
upon the hills, 

Flame against the frozen summits, flash adown from 
melting rills, 

Thaw the whited wastes to verdure, flood the plains 
and quicken dearth, 

Rout the clouds and all between the man and heaven 
that gave him birth. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xvn. 

COMMISSIONS 

Places of trust are only for the trusted; 

And high commissions but for men with missions. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 

COMMON SENSE 

.... Oh, no, not so very strange! The strange 

things in the world, I am beginning to think, are those 

that are the most sensible. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


63 


.... You hardly believe, then, in common sense. 

.... No; if sense were common, the devil would 
lose his kingdom. 

.... What do you mean? 

.... Would lose his world. According to the 
Bible, you know, the world is the thing of which he 
is prince. 

.... Elected that, I suppose, by popular suffrage. 

. . . . No; by popular sufferance — the method of 
selecting rulers where people are governed not by 
constitutional codes but by constitutional cowardice. 

.... Your hope for those who have to inhabit the 
world seems rather a dismal one. 

.... What do you take it to be? 

.... To get out of the devil’s kingdom by dying. 

.... Oh, no; one can sometimes find a foreigner 
in that kingdom and yet not of it, and then he can 
know by experience something of a holier subject, and 
a higher state, even while he is living. 

.... Oh! 

.... Don’t owe me. You owe me nothing. It is I 
that owe you. I should like to spend the whole of the 
rest of my life in paying the debt. Will you let me ? 

Where Society Leads f ill. 

No common system can deprive every agent of it of 
common sense. Artistic vs. Scientific Education. 

COMMUNISM, THE HIGHER 

The world is a ship that sails through space; 

And men are voyagers journeying where 
One destiny waits for all the race, 

One common port for joy or care. 

Why not, like travelers, launched at sea, 

Join hands and hearts, and, in every way, 

If heaven be love, wherever we be, 

Begin the heaven we seek to-day? 

Love and Life f LI. 

companionship (see alone and lonely) 

A foe we meet upon a desert plain, 

Where we who meet turn back to back, and part, 

Is better than a friend who brings disdain 

To greet the utterance of a trusting heart. 


64 A POETS CABINET 

A slighter cloud above the Christ had hover’d 
If men had made his flesh their only mark; 

His woe was love that felt love undiscover’d, 

The Father’s face withdrawn, and dying in the dark. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxix. 
comparison {see fancy and imagination) 

COMPETENCE VS. WEALTH {see MONEY-MAKING) 

Why seek for riches, when we have enough? 

.... Enough! Oh, sluggard! Have we that? 
.... We have — 

Enough for comfort, not enough for care; 

Enough to make us grateful for the wage 
Rewarding earnest work; but not enough 
To bind long habit to their fate whose course 
While serving earth has made them slaves to it. 
The peace of life crowns competence, not wealth. 

Cecil the Seer , i. 

COMPLACENCY 

So, more to shock her than for sympathy, 

My thought play’d round the surface of her life: 

It had been shaped so — to so smooth a thing — 

I burn’d to warp it of complacency. 

Ideals Made Real t L. 

COMPROMISE 

O, I hail the crackling barriers of expedient compromise. 
Let them fall, nor more obstruct the pathways of the 
brave and wise. 

O, I welcome shouts of war when men defend human- 
ity; 

They may die, but right will live, and God, and give 
the victory. A Life in Song: Watching , hi. 
CONCEALMENT {see DECEPTION, FRANKNESS, TRUTH) 

The truth may harm. 

“ How so? ” he ask’d. “ If one show naked sin, — 

Who knows? — it then may shame men from the sin. 
And could the naked good accomplish more? 

Must not we Christians here confess our faults? 

Why should we not? Has wrong such lovely smiles 
And loving tones, that men should long for it? 

The harm is in the lie that masks the sin.” 

Haydn } xxvii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


65 


Is ill less ill when hid? — 

Is not the penitent a sinner frank, 

The hypocrite a sinner not so frank? — 

Idem. 

Their aching smiles travest with joy-like arts 

The throes of grief that rack their trembling hearts. 

Midnight in a City Park. 
Who lives not conscious of some inward thought 
Which out to outward life should not be brought? 
How many a soul must purchase all its joy 
With coin one test of ours could prove alloy! 

Earth owes its faith to men who will not share 
Distrust with him who now has none to bear. 

No sighs of theirs give vent to inward strife, 

Lest weak confession give it voice and life. 

Idem. 

CONCEITS, LIGHT, AS AFFECTED BY IRRITATION 
When minds are filled so full of light conceits, 

Chipped off like clippings from substantial concepts, 
They store fit kindling-wood, when comes a friction, 
To burst in flame. Dante , I., 2. 

CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT AND ENERGY 

We are men; 

And straight and narrow must our pathways be. 

If, Adam-like, we would be gods, we fall. 

Not given to mortal is the life supreme, 

In naught unbalanced, laden light in naught, 
Existence evermore at equipoise, 

Complete with that which on itself depends. 

Oft, who his worth would double, nothing does 
Except to break the back of worth that was, 

While doubled burdens fall to doubled waste. 

We men should humbler be, and pray to heaven 
To have horizons hanging nearer us. 

Our views too broad unfit us for the earth, 

Yet fit us not for loneliness divine, — 

The wide chill chaos, back behind the stars. 

Ideals Made Real, LHI. 

CONCORDANT, ALL LIFE IS 

When the tunes of life get past their solos, and have 
reached the chorus, it may be found that all the parts 


5 


66 


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have uses, and equal uses, whether they be played by 
poor and feeble or by rich and strong. 

On Detective Duty , n: 

CONFIDENCES 

She was a person of strong prejudices, and, on 
certain occasions, evidently took delight in displaying 
them, not only in her words, but also through eccentric 
little adjustments of her forehead, eyes, lips, head, 
shoulders, and whole frame. At the same time, with 
those whom she liked, these traits were not disagreeable. 
They were interesting; they were charming. There 
was something so confiding in the spirit that she mani- 
fested when she told one how she hated other people, 
something so sympathetic in her bearing, that her pres- 
ence seemed to act like sunshine on one’s intellectual 
and spiritual energies. Modern Fishers of Men, n. 

CONNECTIONS AND CHARACTER 
.... We have had in our house, this evening, 
people as well connected in Europe as any who 
ever visited America. 

.... What difference does that make? — Your 
train may have very fine silk in it. Does that fact 
keep it clean, in case you trail it in the mud. 

Where Society Leads, n. 

CONQUEROR, THE 

The man who tramples on his country’s foes 
Treads upward toward a height, however gained, 
Where all his countrymen look up to him. 

Dante, I., 2. 

CONSCIENCE 

Our conscience is the leven of character; 

And just enough of it may sweeten life, 

But too much keeps in ferment moods that work, 
Like brewings, flung to froth and sediment ; 

The froth flies up and off to vex our friends; 

The rest sinks down in self, embittering 
Our own experience. Haydn, xxxix. 

Few can see, beyond their thought, the source whence 
all that lights them flows; 

Few, except the best whose heaven seems bright 
though earth be dark with foes; 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 67 

Or the worst who learn that, when uprightness bends 
to evil’s might, 

Conscience brings the consciousness that souls have 
lost their spirit-light. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxm. 
Does not our conscience come from consciousness? 
And when, then, are we conscious? When unwell: 
Hot, swollen blood frets limbs that feel inflamed; 

A sound man lives unconscious of its flow. 

And so a morbid train of foul ideas 
Will vex a soul diseased. But if in health, 

Its aims all true to God and self, — what call 
For conscience, which we wear but as the curb 
Whereby God reins the thought that love reins not? — 

Haydn , xxxix. 

Our outward lives will serve truth’s inward laws, 
Unconscious of the conscience that but checks 
The course of him who moves toward conscious wrong. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xli. 
This too much conscience, overbalancing 
All wiser judgment, has wrought worse results, 
Made men crave heaven and fear for hell, so much 
That, in the gap betwixt the two, was left 
No charity with which to do good here 
While on the earth. Haydn , xxxix. 

But ah, what hell-forged fetters rest 
Where one’s own conscience must attest 
He would, but dare not, do his best, 

Because his lust or hunger waives 
The truth that but the spirit saves! 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxi. 
You, who in bondage feel because your lives 
Have made your conscience curb you for your sins, 
Think not your conscious wills can rid your souls 
Of that which will not mind a mortal will. 

The law of truth, which is our spirit’s law, 

Is omnipresent as our spirit’s Lord. Idem , xli. 

The next best thing to having a personal con- 
science, I suppose, is having a parent’s conscience,— 
especially if one believe in heredity. 

Where Society Leads , 11. 


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A POETS CABINET 


CONSCIOUS 

I was not conscious 

.... Nay, nor is a child 

Of aught in her of movement or of form, 

That, fitting sweet ideals of loveliness, 

Makes fancied grace and beauty visible. 

Columbus , i., 2. 

CONSCIOUSNESS 

Borne through life, all move in orbits, whose far cycles 
curve about 

Circling spirit-light within them, circled by the world’s 
without. 

What they call their consciousness is but the focus 
where are brought 

Rays borne in from all about them burning to a blaze 
in thought. A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxm. 

CONSISTENT 

When into doubtful paths they stray, 

The wise turn back, tho’ fools may stay, 
Consistent — but that title lacks 
One word to make it fit the quacks, 

Where wisdom grows and change attacks, 
Consistent — monomaniacs . 

Idem , Doubting, xxm. 
CONSTANCY 

For who that loves can think a human heart 
Can ever lightly lay its love aside? — 

The spirit’s life, whose gentle thrills impart 
Each separate ripple of the power supplied 
For every act, can aught its presence hide? — 

Ah, sooner might the heaving sea attest 
Its life, without the movement of the tide; 

And sooner might the sunlight sink to rest, 

Nor trail the sunset hues adown the glowing west. 

Idem, Daring, lxiix. 

CONTRAST 

She came : she went : a beam sublime 
That, straying toward a sunless clime, 
Trembled along the edge of Time 
And then in fright sped back amain. 

Ah, wherefore came she if to go! 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


69 


I had not known the half of woe 
Had I not felt that heavenly glow, 

And, match’d with it, found earth so vain. 

My Ideal. 

CONTROL, DIVINE ( See SELF-CONTROL) 

Thanks to God and adoration, that our minds whose 
freedom hied 

In the first vague dread of duty from the sway they 
had not tried, 

Ne’er can be, where’er they wander, free from that 
divine control 

Which attains its grandest glory in the good of every 
soul; 

Nor can find where life is darkest aught that wholly 
hides from sight 

Love amid the springs of being imaged in the depths 
of right. A Life in Song: Watching , xxxiv. 

CONVERSION (see CHOICE, FORMALISTS, PRIESTS, and 
regeneration) 

The truth converts one oft, if he be true. 

The true man loves his own, and fights for it; 

And, since his own is little and God’s is large, 

He often fights to fall. Yet ranks on high 
Now throng with heroes, whose too slender blades 
Were wielded but for slender causes once; 

Nor sheathed, ere flying shatter’d from their grasp, 
Till truth they fought had proven too strong for them. 
Then, when they knew themselves, and knew the 
truth, 

And knew its mercy too, they loved the truth, 

And came to be its champions, evermore. 

Ideals Made Real , lxiv. 

CORDIALITY 

It seems to me better, in the long run, to be cordial 
to everybody. 

.... Why so? 

.... Because everybody’s opinion of us, using the 
phrase in one sense, doesn’t need to wait very long, 
nor change very much, in order to become everybody’s 
opinion of us in another and more general sense. 

Where Society Leads , 1. 


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Cordialities that make the backward friends 
But tempt the forward to presumption. Force, 
Alive to clear its own approaches, flouts 
A welcome meant for weakness. Columbus , I., 2. 

CORDOVA, SPAIN, BY NIGHT 

Night bade me rest. I left the street, 

Its faces fair and banter sweet ; 

And oh, how human seem’d the town 
Beside which I had laid me down! 

But, ere I slept, the rising moon, 

From skies as blue as if ’t were noon, 

Pour’d forth her light in silvery streams, 
Eclipsing all my light of dreams. 

And soon, as if some power would shake 
My drowsy eyes, and make them wake, 

The walls were spray’d with showers of light, 
Whose flickerings left a fountain bright 
That toss’d the moonbeams in its play, 

And dash’d and flash’d their gleams away. 

I just could see the fountain flow 
Within a marble court below. 

It seem’d a spirit, clothed in white, 

But half reveal’d to mortal sight, 

Whose glancing robes would lift and glide 
O’er dainty limbs that danced inside, 

And touched the ground with throbbing sweet 
As if the tread of fairy feet ; 

While round about the fount-sent shower, 

That strung with pearls each grateful flower, 
Rare fragrance rose from bush and bower. 

Ere long across the marble court 
Soft laughter rang and calls of sport, 

And maidens pass’d the entering gate, 

Whose voices rose in sweet debate, 

So clear, so pure, they might have sprung 
From moonlight, not from mortal tongue. 

I lay there charm’d, my eyelids closed, 

My limbs enchain’d; but, ere I dozed, 

Gave one look more. Alas for me! 

The moon had moved, and made me see, 

In dreamlike light where slept the day, 

. Vague forms that join’d those maids at play. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


71 


They linger’d there, half hid by trees 
And sprawling cactus; now at ease, 

Now whirling off in shadowy sets 
Where urged guitars and castonets. 

Anon, this music rose and fell, 

As if, because, all fill’d so well, 

So laden down with sweets before, 

The languid air could hold no more. 

“Ah, how could it or I?” I thought; 

“This land of lasting spring is fraught 
With charms that pale by living truth 
The brightest dreams that lured my youth.” 
Then, while the music heaved my breast, 

The thought it cradled sank to rest. 

I slept and dreamt. To you it seems 
No censer, swung to souls in dreams 
Before the mind’s most holy shrine, 

Rear’d there to memories most divine, 

Could incense hold whose fumes could rise 
And dim what bless’d my closing eyes. 

You think my soul most surely thought 
Of Cordova in dreams it brought. 

You think that once again it calms 
My mood to watch beneath the palms 
The ancient river freshly lave 
Rome’s ruined bridge that naught could save. 
You think, once more, my wonder wends 
Across that orange-court and bends 
In that cathedral-mosk, in which 
A thousand shafts with sculptures rich 
Surround the soul like ghosts of trees 
Beyond the touch of time or breeze, 

While all the shafts to all bespeak, 

In jasper, porphyry, verdantique, 

The skill that train’d their artist’s hand 
In grand old times that blest this land 
Before the Moor’s glad suns had set 
On days that earth can ne’er forget. 

Nay, nay, I dreamt with joy intense, 

But did not heed a hint from thence. 

You think my spirit rose to flights, 

Aspiring past all present sights, 


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A POETS CABINET 


Invoking from the grave of time 
The heroes of that city’s prime, — 

The great Gonsalvo marching on, 

Or Ferdinand of Aragon? — 

You think I saw, by camp-fires bright, 

The turban bow beneath the sight 
Of chieftains marshall’d, far and near, 

With drifting plume and flashing spear, 

Like cloud and lightning sent to sweep 
Abdillah’s Moors across the deep? — 

You think I trod these lanes in days 
When Califs vied to sound their praise, 

And term’d the town that seem’d so blest 
“The grander Bagdad of the west”; 

Or trod them, when it gave the Goth 
His “Home of holiness and troth”; 

Or, long ere through its children’s veins 
Flow’d Roman blood to richen Spain’s, 

Beheld it named by every mouth, 

“The matchless gem of all the south”? — 

Nay, nay, I dreamt with joy intense, 

But did not heed a hint from thence. 

My Dream at Cordova. 

CORSETS AND CRINOLINE 
.... Corsets and crinoline — traps for women ! 
.... No — for men. They go around the one; 
they get around the other. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl, I., 2. 

COURTESIES 

For your sake made and kept a friend 
By courtesies limbering my stiff limbs of pride 
Till limp and limping as humility. 

Columbus , 1., 2. 

COURTESY 

When courtesy 
And caution balance in the scales, the heart 
Is kinder than the head, if not more wise. 

Idem , hi., 1. 

True courtesy shows itself to the least as well as 
the greatest. If once a lady then always. 

The Ranch Girl , iv. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


73 


courting {see flirt and suitors) 

A fool may think that a passing glance, 

Like a spark from a wheel, as he whirls in a dance, 
A touch of his hand, a word, a sigh, 

May win the heart that his form flits by. 

But love is a boon, if wise one be, 

Too dear to be won by a worthless plea. 

Wise love has a spirit that craves to find 
The inward mind, 

A soul to its own soul so allied 

That though no more 
Of flesh two wore 

Their souls would linger side by side. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxv. 

In common walks of life the two had met ; 

And joined in common thought and common speech; 
And, often, many a common good to get, 

Had tender’d apt assistance each to each. 

Placed side by side, their hands had touch’d and 
trembled, 

Their eyes glanced at and through each other’s eyes. 
Behind the hands were hearts; nor had dissembled; 
Behind the eyes were souls; there had been smiles 
and sighs. 

And then, anon, to him this maiden’s frame, 

One mote of many a million in the world, 

More dear appear’d than all the gems that flame 
In all the stars through all heaven’s welkin whirl’d. 
Thus thought the man ; and she, the while he thought 
it, 

Had found such strength within his frame of dust, 
Which even winds could waste, that, ere he sought it, 
Her soul, at rest with his, had felt unending trust. 

Idem , Serving , xm., xiv. 

COURTING, ITS METHOD 

Most maids love mastery; and the closest cling 
To those who show the strength to hold them fast. 
Full many a suitor, when he wins his love, 

Will treat her merely like some petted puss, 

Caress, then cuff her, till she yield at last, 

Won solely through his wondrous wilfulness. 


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If one defer to her, she pities him ; 

And names him friend, because she feels him frail. 
Her favorite cavalier seems less a friend, 

At first, than foe who stays the brunt in time 
To seem to save her when she seems to fall. 

Ideals Made Real , lvi. 

COURTING, A SENSITIVE MAN’S 
Once upon a time, I too discovered, by the presence 
of unwonted flutterings in my bosom, that I also had a 
similar yearning for the companionship of a similar 
combination of human flesh and — what I then con- 
sidered — human coloring. And in that romantic 
period it often happened that, the evening after I had 
called upon her, and the next and next and next, I 
would sit alone, unable utterly to do a thing but face 
my mirror, and to meditate upon the problem how to 
arrange to call on her again. At last, upon the fifth 
night possibly, I would dress myself, pull on a pair of 
gloves a size too small for me, and, saying “I have 
waited long enough; to-night I will call,” saunter out 
and down the street, and reach her door-step. But, 
alas! once there, my heart would fail me. I would 
say: “I cannot — not to-night; it’s soon, too soon. 
Were I to go in now she really might suppose that I 
thought something of her ! ” So I would stand a while 
debating with myself, or cross the street and try to 
look from a distance into her parlor- window, wonder- 
ing who that fellow was that was with her now, and 
there I would linger, walking up and down for hours, 
until aroused at last by a strong conviction that every 
policeman on the street had marked me out as some 
suspicious character. And this absurd performance I 
would repeat for nights and nights, until, perhaps 
upon the tenth night, I would summon up sufficient 
pluck to ring her door-bell with a throbbing heart, pass 
into her parlor with a face as flushed as Daniel’s 
prophets entering into the fiery furnace, and then 
spend all the evening talking to her sister! for fear 
still that the girl I fancied really might suppose that I 
thought something of her! 

Modern Fishers of Men , ix. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


75 


coward (. see heroism) 

You never know a coward soul till cowed 
By gusts out- winding his own self-conceit; 
And. garbs they guise in, never cloud the air 
In time for us to brace the fence they fell. 

Columbus , hi., i. 

CRANK, A 

. . . . Him? 

A crank, — and worse, a creaking crank! 

. . . . Without 

Some crank to creak of it, men might forget 
The wheels of thought. Idem, i., i. 


CREDITOR 

No watch-dog keeps a creditor at bay 
Like well-housed earnings. 

Columbus , i., 3. 

CREEDS ( see DOUBT, FAITH, PROGRESS and WORDS) 
The thing that most men worship is themselves. 
Or, look they upward, then it is the god 
Most like themselves. You know religion’s aim 
Is bringing gods and men together; so 
To many men that creed seems best, which best 
Makes out how mean and small a god can be. 

The Aztec God , hi. 

When souls have grown to truth, their nurture needs, 
Ere growth can pass beyond it, growing creeds. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , liv. 


CRIME VS. FAULT 

.... Do you suppose men punish most the ones 
that are the most at fault? 

.... Why, yes, of course. 

.... Oh no. 

.... What then? 

.... They punish crime. 

.... And what is crime? 

.... The fault that some one has found out. It 
grows in low life usually. The seed is dropped from 
sin in high life. With God, the seed may count for 
something. Man forms his judgment from the growth. 

The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 


76 


A POETS CABINET 


CRIMES 

Great crimes can never their souls allure, 

Who have kept their moods and memories pure, 
And so I know, 

That the souls that hold to the right with ease, 
Have fought their vice before they fall. 

The time to stop sinning 
Is ere its beginning. 

Love and Life, xvn. 

CRITIC 

All this their critic cares not to know. 

He is nothing if not the dog of his day, 

Who barks or who licks 

As his master, the world, may make him obey 
By throwing him bones or swinging him kicks. 

Pray, what can he know till all the world know it? 

Unveiling the Monument. 

CRITICISM, EXCESSIVE 

Did we turn 

Our preferences to pedagogues, and school 
The souls that came to us for sympathy, 

Though best of friends, we might seem worst of foes. 

Dante , I., 2. 

CRITICS, POPULAR 

Popular critics, like other popular people, give 
voice to popular opinion. They are on the crest of its 
wave for the very reason that they have the full 
support of the opinion that is about and below them. 
For this reason, paradoxical as it may seem, those 
esteemed the best critics of an age are often its worst 
critics. 

The Representative Significance of Form, xxvi. 
CROWDS, COURTING THEM 

Courting crowds, 

A soul lives crampt; but if one speak the truth, 
Crowds leave — good riddance! — place is clear’d for 
friends. Ideals Made Real, xvii. 

culprit 

Anon, awaking, he could hear the sound 
Of vying voices from a seat behind. 

And saw two men there, as he turn’d him round. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


77 


And one had eyes of that swift glancing kind, 
Which hint the culprit, whose suspicious mind 
The secrets of his inner self would shield. 

Low views of others and himself combined, 

Had given this man distrust, not all conceal’d 
In manners taught to stay what should not be 
reveal’d. A Life in Song: Daring , xxxi. 
CULTURE, STARTED IN DIFFERENT WAYS 
The temple of culture is entered by many doors. 
The instructor who induces a young man to push open 
one of them will force him to a glimpse that will lurfe 
him to as grand an experience as could any of the 
others. The Literary Artist and Elocution . 

CUPID 

Our lips, but parting e’en to speak of love, 
Infringe on Cupid; and, before they shut, 

Some tingling arrow of that jealous god 
Will make them drop all soberness. 

Ideals Made Real , lv. 

CURRENT VALUE IN TRUTH 

.... No truth then, eh? 

.... Yes; truth enough for all. 

But truth expressed is coin to use, not hoard. 

For when it bears the stamp of times too old, 

It loses current value. Columbus , H., 2. 

CURSES 

. . . . My curses on you! — To the sacrifice! 

.... The two things go together. And how kind, 
When one has curses loaded on him so, 

To let him load them on another! 

The Aztec God , iv., I. 

CUSTOM 

To most men no disgrace can loom like theirs 
Who dare do aught save by the grace of custom. 
Where earth’s esteem is what all strive for first, 
Her customs make them cowards to the call 
Of conscience ; and the foulest crime 
Seems not a curse, if it be only common. 

Idem , v. 

Is it so well 

For one man to resist what all men wish? — 


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The customs that the centuries have crowned? 
How many have dared all, to thwart the world, 
And only thwarted good the world could do them! 

Idem , v. 


CUSTOMS 

Our lives reflect 

The light of our surroundings. What are here? — 
Accursed customs that mistrust the soul, 

Ay, robe its every feature in their rags, 

Draped all to hint unshapeliness beneath. 

Away with earthly habits that can hide 
God’s image framed within! Columbus , II., I. 

The world has its encircling customs too, 

Drawn sharply round the spheres we fill in life. 
They make one shame-faced, make the soul a slave. 
We need the truth to free us from the world. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xli. 


CYNIC 

Once I saw a mortal sailing toward a lone isle of 
the sea 

Where, he thought, no other’s will would check his 
own that would be free. 

First upon the shore he rested; then, not born to dwell 
alone, 

Longing to be loved, his nature broke away from 
reason’s throne. 

Howled the winds like witches’ voices; moved the 
shades like ghostly forms, 

While the leaves like footsteps rustled ’twixt the 
thunders and the storms. 

Till the cynic, far from manhood, all man’s nobler 
traits forgot, 

Curst himself and earth and all things, rest or free- 
dom finding not. Idem , Watching , vii. 

CYNICISM 

We lie to our nature; we twit and we laugh; 

We dare 

To jeer of a love that was ours, 

We dare, yet there 

Through thorns and tares are living the flowers! 

Love and Life f xxxvi. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


79 


DAMN 

Not far away, a place is waiting those 
Who wish to damn a soul for doing right, 

In which that sort of thing is done much better. 

Dante , hi., 2 . 

DAMNATION ( See WILL-POWER) 

Some tell us that the fairest forms on earth, 

Most full of mirth and softness and caress, 

Whose mildness tames life’s wild, coquettish blood, 
Leave in the tomb their loveliness and charm, 

And go thence, fiends. The Aztec God , v. 

DAMNED, THE 

Sad, sad, indeed, is the lot of those 
Whom no one mourns when their coffins close. 
How lone, when the robes of earth-life fall, 

Are spirits that hear no welcoming call ; 

Are spirits that see no smile of delight, 

But, flying in shame from all things bright, 

And, hiding in horror themselves have made, 

Live ever in sunshine and dwell in shade. 

Love and Life , lv. 

DANCING 

Ask the leaves 

The reason why they vibrate in the breeze, 

Or ask the trees when swaying in the storm; 

Ask of the spray-drop leaping from the rill, 

Or up and down amid the waves at sea; 

Ask of the circling smoke, tornado’s cloud, 

The sun and moon revolving round the world. 

But when the throb of music beats the air 
And sets the currents of the breast in motion, 
Sweeping the bounding rills to rhythmic waves 
That dash like breakers through the heart and 
pulse, 

Ask not why every vein begins to glow, 

Each nerve to tremble, all the frame to heave, 

And to and fro to march, to leap, to dance, — 

Enough — if natural ! — When checking nature, 

You lay your human hands upon the work 
Heaven meant for what it is; you are profane. 

The Aztec God , 11. 


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A POETS CABINET 


DARK 

Yet, in the dark, is all so vague and wild. 

How the whole air is weighted with the gloom! 

Even to draw it in, my lungs, o’er taxed, 

Would rather choose not breathe than bear the 
burden, 

These clouds are curtained like a funeral pall, 

Fit funeral pall, round my dear dying hope. 

Idem , v. 

dawn {see sunrise) 

Just as dawn began 
Erasing all the stars with lines of light. 

A Life in Song: Daring , xiv. 

They rout the gloom 
Within the heart sure as the morning sun 
That spreads new glory o’er the darkened world, 
The while its fire-sped lances tilt the shades 
That fly afar, and leave our lives with heaven. 

The Aztec God , in. 

And what a dawn was that ! 
As if the sun had drawn the earth to itself, 

I dwelt in central light; and heaven, high heaven — 
Could feel some rays, perhaps, was touch’d by them, 
At star-points in the sky, but own’d no more. 

Haydn , vm. 

Above his crimson couch, 
The sun drew back the curtains of the east; 

While pale-grown shades began in vales to crouch, 

Or, hurrying westward, leave the world releast 
From spells that long had silenced man and beast 
Then winds, arising, shook the rustling trees, 

As if they said, “ ’T is time your rest had ceast ”; 
And birds that sang soar’d high, as if to seize 
The last of flickering stars, blown out by morning’s 
breeze. 

Soon o’er the hills ascends the sun’s bright crown 
And, richly robed, as welcoming thus their king, 
The dew-deck’d groves and bushes bend low down. 
Bright limbs o’erladen with rare gems they bring — 
Rare gifts, borne all too soon, on sunny wing, 
Toward clouds that in the blue dome o’er them blaze. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


8l 


Then sounds of labor join with bells that ring ; 

And one more dawn has heard the prayer and praise 
Of those who past it see the day of all the days. 

They see a day, where heaven’s bright grain of life 
Sprouts in the last dark death-urn of the night, 

And buds of peace burst through the thorns of strife, 
And souls awake to praise enduring light. 

Ah, even now, they see, with earthly sight, 

That men may track the rain-storm by the rose, 

And make the wake of war the way of right, 

And learn, as each fresh breath of morning blows, 
How sweet and fair a life beneath the darkness grows. 
So might our youth have hail’d this morn; but he, 
For whom the soft winds whisper’d in their round, 
For whom the brisk birds chirp t their calls of glee, 
For whom the bright sun up the heavens wound, 
And all the world of work awoke to sound, 

While men moved gladly and the children leapt, — 
He, dead to hope and happiness profound, 

His dreams begun, while all his heavens had wept, — 
Upon the chill, damp ground, through all the dawn 
had slept. 

A Life in Song: Daring , lxxviii-lxxxi. 

So the sun withdrawn 
Climbs up to a dawn, 

When, just before it, the night gives way 
And clouds are hanging like blossoms of light, 
Presaging the fruit of the day. 

Idem: Loving , xii. 

DAY 

Sworn to ceaseless constancy, 

Day had come, his fair suite with him, all their armor 
burnish’d bright, 

Searching, as they search forever, for the flying forms 
of night. 

All the van of early sunbeams shot reflections from the 
hill. Idem , Dreaming , xlii. 

Its glancing beams 
Assail’d the trees, through boughs that draped the 
streams 


6 


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Like shot-rent banners, where bright shafts of day 
Clove through the yielding darkness of the way. 

Idem , Seeking , xxn. 

DEAR, MY, ITS MEANING 

When a man says “my dear” we all know what 
it means. He thinks the word necessary. He is 
trying to balance something that he knows to be 
unkind with something — a mere phrase in this case — 
that he thinks may seem the opposite. 

Where Society Leads , n. 

DEATH 

In death’s long sleep 

No more shall weary eyes close but to weep, 

Nor thoughts keep mining from the darkened brain 
Fit fuel for the morrow’s burning pain. 

Midnight in a City Park . 

DEATH, A LOVER’S 

When I am gone — their ghastly deed been done — 

I wish you to recall me as I am, — 

One fit for all things almost, save to die, 

Each factor, organ, limb of me complete, 

And, at this moment, hot against the fire 
Blazed through me by your love-enkindled eyes, 

No sinew but is trembling with the draft 
Of that delicious flame; and yet none too 
Not strengthened by a power divine like that 
Propelling all creation, — I am god, 

Not man. Nay, nay! Remember me as god. 

You must not see that unveiled, writhing frame 
Weak, color- void, save where the death-blood dyes it. 
Waloon, you must not be there. I shall writhe 
More like a god to know you are not there. — 

But go you where we met first — in the woods — 

You know the place — to me the holiest place 
My life has ever known! Waloon, go there. 

Oh, swear to me you will. — My soul will swear 
To meet you. 

. . . . What? 

.... By all that makes me god, 

In form, perchance, in spirit certainly. — 

The Aztec God t iv., I. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


83 


DEATH, BETTER THAN LOVELESS LIFE 
Far better than bodies that rot before 
The breath has left them, and hold no more, 

In the haunted hell that is glassed by their eyes, 

A charm to inspire, a thought to make wise, — 

Far better than these, the face as white 
As ashes where dead fires drop their light ; 

Far better the eyes, all dim and dry, 

But blind as one’s own that can only cry; 

Far better the crape and the veils that fall ; 

Far better the living room turned to a pall. 

All these, whatever the future may give, 

Have proved that love has a right to live. 

Love and Life , xxxv. 

DEATH, BEFORE MAIMING 

Why 

Outlive the happy moment for one’s death ! 

A body maimed may mold a spirit maimed. 

The Aztec God , 1. 

Ope wide the casket that the world has bruised 
And let the unbruised soul fly out of it. Idem . 

DECEIT 

At times, 

Deceit that spices daintily with doubt 

The plain-served truth more seasons it to taste. 

Idem , 11. 

DECEIVED, OWNING ONESELF 

Wise men who wish to guard their influence are 
never quick to own themselves deceived. 

The Two Paths , 11. 

DECEPTION {see CONCEALMENT, LIES, and TRUTH) 
When comes a loss of fortune, honor, sway, 

When threatens death that hope alone can stay, 

When senile states presume they still have youth, — 
Oh, what could curse men worse than words of truth? 

Midnight in a City Park. 

Would you deceive them? 

.... What men have no right 
To know, one has no right to let them know. 

Dante , 1., 1. 


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A POETS CABINET 


Social despotism is the mother of deception. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl, I. 

DECEPTION THROUGH PERSONALITY 

.... Deception! Men deceive as much as women. 

.... Oh, no, no; not that way! They lie, they 
bribe, they use brute force; but never think of baiting 
their hooks with their own personality; suggest — as 
that man thinks all women do — that he is master of 
their thought and feeling. We might excuse re- 
formers their attempt to level woman to the plane 
of man, did this not carry with it, too, the risk of 
sinking her to something lower. 

Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 

DECORATION, A FOREIGN 

A foreign decoration on a man’s breast has the same 
effect upon some people as a disk made to glitter by a 
hypnotizer. Where Society Leads, /. 

DECORATION DAY 

With every Spring-time to that region comes 
A day when all the people, far and near, 

Recall the warfare waged in former years 
That from disruption saved their native land, 

Set free the bondman, and made liberty, 

Throughout their country’s length and breadth, 
supreme. 

And ere that day comes, through the week before, 
The wives whose husbands fell in that sad war, 

The friends and sweethearts brooding o’er a loss 
That oft is deepest when ’t is least express’d, 

The mothers mourning sons, and boys and girls, 

Who think of their dead fathers as of forms 
That fill’d the twilight of their childhood’s dreams, 
Are forming wreaths of all the greenest leaves, — 

Of myrtle, ivy, arbor-vitae, join’d 

With all the fairest flowers the season yields. 

The garden’s tulip, pansy, peony, 

Magnolia, honeysuckle, bleeding-heart, 

Phlox, lilac, snowball, and wisteria, 

The forest’s bursting glories, chief and first 
The dogwood, rill’d like mimic drifts of snow, 

The blue-flag, waving welcomes from the marsh, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


85 


The lily of the pond and of the vale, 

The daisy, violet, and buttercup, 

The elder-berry and the bridle wreath, 

From garden, grove or roadside — all are cull’d 
And weaved in wreaths to deck the soldiers’ graves. 
At noon the church-bell rings, the organ peals, 

The hymns and prayers ascend, the orator 
Recalls once more the virtues of the past, 

The privilege of the present; then the throng 
Move slowly toward the place where sleep the dead, 
And, bending o’er the graves of loved ones lost, 

And o’er the graves of strangers who no more 
Have friends they loved on earth to care for them, 
Kind forms lay one by one their tributes down. 

No soldier’s tomb is pass’d and not enwreath’d 
With flowers that rest there like embodiments 
Of fragrant hopes and beautiful desires, 

And make the grave no type of death’s dark night, 
But of the rosy dawn of life beyond. 

A Life in Song: Finale. 
deeds {see work) 

DEEDS OF MAN ARE NATURE’S FLOWERING 
He must have felt that earth’s unconscious growth 
Could flower alone in conscious deeds of man, 

And where man wrought with nature, there that 
both 

Were working to fulfill a God-formed plan. 

The American Pioneer. 

DEEDS REVEALERS OF CHARACTER {see WORDS) 

Oh, not what life appears to be, 

Is what in life is true. 

Inveiled behind the forms we see 
Are things we cannot view. 

What but the spirit working through 
The guise men wear to what they do 
Reveals the force that, foul or fair, 

Awakes and makes the nature there? 

The Aztec God , iv., 2. 

DEEDS, TRUE, TESTS OF TRUE LIFE 

The words of men whose deeds have proved them true 
Are also true. Cecil the Seer , 111. , 2. 


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DEEDS VS. WHIMS 

The world is full of brains, and all the brains 
Of whims, and all that gives the whims more worth 
Than blood that churns them up to consciousness, 

Is that they leave the brain and live in deeds. 

Columbus , II., I. 

DEFERENCE TO THOSE WELL KNOWN 

A man is not without honor save in his own house- 
hold — for the same reason, I suppose, that most of our 
women prefer French frocks and phrases to homespun 
and Saxon; or that, in the street, most of our men, 
when courting a woman, take off their hat to her; but, 
when married to her, keep it on. Those who are near 
to us may be very dear, but often we fail to fear them 
enough to be awed into even decent deference. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl , 11. 

DEFINED 

The finite only can be well defined. 

Haydn , xxi. 

DEFINITION 

A definition is of value in the degree in which it 
accords with the undefined conceptions that are in 
the minds of the largest number of thinkers upon the 
subject. Art in Theory , xv. 

DELIRIUM TREMENS 

.... Ever try to sit up for a night with one who 
had delirium tremens? 

.... No. 

.... You never got as near to hell as I, then. 

. . . . Yes, a drunkard can make the very devil of 
a bed mate. Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 

DELUSION 

Alas, must I ever wandering go 
Where shadows and echoes delude me so? 

How can one live a life ideal 

Who fears that love can never be real? 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxix. 

O eyes that had watch’d for the form of delight, 

O ears that had listen’d the long, long night, 

O hands that had touch’d what dropp’d from you dead, 
No looming delusion your faith had misled. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


8 7 


Nay, brighter than suns, love’s own true beams 
Are burning through mists that obscured them in 
dreams. 

No cheeks of a phantom had e’er such a glow; 

No eyes of a phantom such trust could show. 

Come hither ; lay hold of my spirit, O love, 

That flutters its wings like a captive-dove. 

Sweet pain, to be pierc’d by the shaft of thine eye! 
Sweet prison, in thy warm clasp to lie ! Idem , xli. 

DEMEANING ONESELF 

To demean oneself is to be mean to oneself; and he 
that is mean to himself will seldom be not mean to 
any man. Where Society Leads , I. 

DEPTHS 

Though dense the depths around, 

No high-aimed spirit to them is bound; 

No heaven-aimed spirit abides in a grave; 

But surely as air when plunged in a wave, 
Whatever may try to hinder or stop, 

There comes a time when it comes to the top. 

The Last Home Gathering. 
DESCENT 

The man who boasts a family tree, 

And great grandpas that came and went, 

Which proves to all, the more they see, 

How great has been his own descent; 

And who from self-made people shrinks 
That now do what his grandpas did, 

Lest other men may see the links 
That bind to what he wishes hid, — 

Is just the thing he thinks. 

The Little Twin Tramps , II. 
desire {see ambition and aspiration) 

With no teacher but desire 

In these hours of stolen study, snatch’d from toil in 
sweat and mire. A Life in Song: Dreaming , vi. 
DESPONDENCY 

Where is hell? Ah me, there is life on earth 
Torn away from all it is worth. 

Things are severed by nature allied: 

Wish and all of its wants divide. 


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Who but the loving are dupes of hate? 

Who but the faithful are foiled by fate? 

Who but the seekers of truth can find 
Half of the falsehood framed for the mind? 

Who but those with ideals fair 
Deal with a real life hard to bear? 

True to an instinct cheating all trust, 

Flapping white wings that raise but the dust, 

Stuck like stones in the mire of the earth, 

What for our souls are the bright stars worth ! 

Love and Life, xxiv. 

DESTINY 

. . . . One’s destiny, you think, is made by talk? 

. . . . One’s destiny was never yet fulfilled 
By one whose coward conscience dared not give 
Expression to the spirit that inspired it. 

Columbus, i., i. 

DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD, IN SCANDINAVIAN MYTH 
But while I gazed upon that scene, behold, 

A storm arose. Its thunders, while they roll’d, 

Woke Heimdall, who, anon, on Gulltopp rode 
Like lightning to Valhalla, the abode 
Of mighty Odin. Then each hill and plain 
Seem’d filled with gods, who moved with signs of pain. 
Here Tyr uplifts, like some vast mountain-side, 

His heaven-high shield that shakes with wounded pride. 
There Ullur aims his bow to test his art, 

And meteors through remotest regions dart. 

Now Braji leaves his wife, Iduna fair, 

For Forseti ; and toward them in despair 
Comes Freyja with her plaintful team of gray, 

And Vidar, Vali, Njord, all join the fray, 

While through the north, like an Aurora, gleam 
The spears of Skadi’s troops that nearer stream. 

Far up in Hlidskjalf, towering o’er the crowds, 

Like some fair morning sunburst o’er the clouds, 
Bright Odin stands, and prompt at his command 
Convulsions dash the sea and shake the land, 

Where comes great Thor, whose chariot sweeps the sky 
On wheels of fire far flashing as they fly, 

Eclipsing all those rival hosts of light 
As thunder-storms blot out the stars of night. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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But what had roused the gods? — I gazed below, 

And there beheld a mighty waste of woe. — 

The serpent, Nidhogg, with new malice lash’d 
The sea surrounding all things, till it dash’d 
O’er all the shores. The great tree’s giant form, 
Amid the waves and winds of that wild storm, 
Sway’d to and fro, till with a mighty crash 
Its trunk was rent, the while a blinding flash 
Of lightning tore apart the upper sky, 

And fired the great tree’s limbs that hung on high, 

As if an orb of flame, or comet whirl’d 
Against what might become a bursting world, 

Tho’ yet the crash came not. Its flashing drew 
Fire-genii from the depths who fiercely flew 
To tear the bifrost down. More dread than these, 
Huge giants weeding up the shaken trees, 

And rending from the earth the crumbling cliffs, 

Press toward the gods, who through the smoke that lifts, 
Advance their blazing lines ! Of no avail 
Is now their show of strength ! For once they fail ; 
For once can force more dread than gods’ assault; 
And, almost ere they charge, the columns halt; 

Then back through many a lengthening league they roll ; 
Then, wheeling bend their rivals like a scroll. 

Borne back again, for one more charge they form, 

As terrible as every earthly storm 
Concenter’d into one. On, on they bound, 

And meet — O soul, to have outlived that sound! — 
Nor heaven nor hell could stand so fierce a shock; 
But all things, — god and giant, star and rock, 

And sky and earth, with bursting fires were hurl’d 
Like lava through the air! then all the world 
Seem’d smoke, so dense I felt it on me press. 

Then still was all, and all was nothingness. 

A Life in Song : Seeking , xxxm., xxxiv. 

DETAILS 

Requesting all details. 

It took me weeks to draft them, had to turn 
My methods upside down and inside out, 

And mass and multiply and magnify, 

Till truth was large enough for all to see it. 

Columbus , 1., 3. 


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DETECTIVE WORK, AND TEACHING 

.... You like your occupation, do you? 

.... Quite late — your asking that of me! — when 
I have taught for twenty years. 

.... Is that detective work? 

.... Much like it. A teacher must detect, at 
least, a place inside the brain where thought, when 
planted, will be apt to grow. He usually finds the 
place just where some mischief has been weeded out. 

The Little Twin Tramps , I. 

device {see tact) 

While earth keeps training men to use device, 

The souls too proud to use it or too pure, 

Are sure to rouse at last from lips precise 

The chidings of some wrong-reform’ d ill-doer, 
Whose former vice has foul’d the soul’s emotion, 

Who deems a sight of naked spirit sin, 

And all love haunted by some carnal notion, 

And so keeps out the Christ to keep the devil in. 

A Life in Song: Serving , vi. 

DEVIL 

We all of us were loving, were we not? 

Yet working outward, wisely, as we deem’d, 

We all have done the thing to doom us all. 

Alas what power has wrought to thwart us thus? 

I do believe, though long I doubted it, 

There lives a Devil ! Hell-scorch’d hands alone 
Could weave such death-black shrouds from thread so 
bright, 

Drawn from sleek skeins of love. That spider- 
fiend, 

Feeding on our sweet plans, emits this web, 

To trip and trap us in like flies ! — Ah me, 

It may be well that one should suffer here 
Until a wish bereaved shriek prayers for death ; 

But through what fearful pangs earth peels away 
This withering flesh from off the worthier soul ! 

What further shred invests the love so stript! — 

Is this, then, being freed from earth? — Yet where 
Are signs of heaven? — My God, I see them not. 

Haydn , xlvii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


9i 


DEVIL, WHEN HE DRIVES 
The Prince of this World is not nice in choice 
Of equipages ; where he cannot check, 

He mounts the car of truth and grasps the rein; 
And when the Devil drives, he drives for home. 

Idem , li. 

DEVILISH 

.... The devil ! 

.... She reminds you of him, eh? 

.... All pretty things do. 

.... What a world to live in ! — where all the pretty 
things are devilish pretty. 

.... And pretty devilish. On Detective Duty , 11. 

DEVOTION TO IDEALS ( See IDEALS) 

.... Yes, yes, but yet can it be worth the price? 

.... I know your meaning, — loss of life, perhaps, 
And all for which some prize life, — ease and love. 

But, — ah, who would not feel it is worth this? — 

And others go with me who think the same. 

.... Some call them fools 

.... They are fools, if this life be all; 

And fools, if they but claim that it is all. 

For, risking dangers thick as mid-sea-mists 
In war, in wave, men’s deeds outdo their words 
And prove they serve a grander sovereignty, 

Whose realms outreach all death-lines. 

Columbus , hi., 1. 

DICTATOR, THE RIGHT OF THE 
Think you God gives to strength of will the right 
To say what is right? And if not, what then? 

If one obey then, how can he be sure 

That he obeys not sin? Haydn , xxvi. 

DIPLOMATS AND FOREIGN MANNERS 

.... Do foreigners determine our diplomatic 
appointments? 

.... Those are most apt to get them who show 
that they know how to adapt themselves to foreign 
requirements. 

.... I suppose a man then is to fit himself to 
represent America abroad by showing how un-Ameri- 
can he can be at home. 


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.... You know — you have seen our foreign rep- 
resentatives. 

.... Yes. I congratulate you upon the logical 
workings of your mind. Where Society Leads, I. 

DISAPPOINTMENT 

If blind men all were born blind, none 
Were cursed by losing sight. In nights like this, 
Not unawakened hope I dread, as much 
As wakening disappointment. Columbus, III., 2. 
DISCERNING 

The sky contains full half I see. 

In soil below I live, I love. 

High in the half that looms above, 

Oh, is there nothing there for me? 

The sky’s bright sun and stars I see 
The soil below is guised in green 
In heaven whose orbs are robed in sheen, 

Oh, is there nothing there for me? 

In thoughts within, sweet rest I see; 

In things without, but dust and toil. 

Where hang no veils of flesh and soil, 

Oh, is there nothing there for me? Dante, n., 2 
discipline {see pain) 

Oh, what is the meaning of life like yours? 

Does heaven mistake the traits that it cures? 

Or must the mood of a soul when trained 
Be gauged by the discipline each has gained? 

And is discipline never in reach of those 
Whose natures have never been crushed by woes? 
Do the cheeriest need the weariest strife, 

Ere broken to bear what blesses our life? 

Is the test of true metal the blow and the scrape 
And the time that it takes to bend it in shape? 

If so, perhaps, it is well that the best 

Are those to whom earth brings the least of rest. 

The Last Home Gathering. 
The pest of tutors, but the students’ pet, 

Who gain’d more discipline than all the school 
Through working hard to break through every rule. 

A Life in Song : Daring, L. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


93 


DISCONTENT 

We are not always curst, when born 
By throes of nature’s freak or scorn 
With moods abnormal and forlorn; 

We are not curst ere we consent 
To dam our own development 
By choking down our discontent. 

If truth be something sought and learn’d, 

He most may gain, who most has yearn’d 
To fill a need he most discern’d. 

Idem: Doubting , xvm. 

.... If none would feel, none would have discontent; 
And that would cure all evils of the time. 

.... Yes, that is true. Why, even small boys now, 

Must have small beer 

.... For that will pop, you know! 

Will make a noise! explode monotony! 

Cecil the Seer, I. 

DISEASE 

Disease that roam’d for prey 
First made his pulse flee fever’d from the shroud, 
Then clutch’d and check’d and chill’d it, where he lay. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xxn. 

DISESTEEM 

.... It never is one’s duty to do what can justly 
earn the disesteem of others. 

.... Those never justly earn men’s disesteem who 
have not first earned that of their own conscience. 

The Two Paths, n. 

DISHONESTY 

I have found dishonesty a species of decay that 
grows more rank the longer it keeps hidden. 

The Two Paths , n. 

DIVINE GUIDANCE 

0 Life divine, what soul succeeds 
In aught on earth but he 
Who moves as all desires and deeds 
Are lured and led by thee ! 

Columbus , I. 

divorce (, see honor) 

You deem it wise or good, humane or Godly, 


94 


A POETS CABINET 


To doom a boy for one mistake in mating 

To everlasting punishment on earth? 

Dante , I., i. 

.... Why not assert yourself with her to-day? 

.... You ask her, she will tell you that I dare not. 

.... But that would not be true. 

.... I think it would, although my reasons for it 
might not be what she would think or understand, if 
told. 

.... And what are they? 

.... What she might do, in case I angered her, — 
the accompaniments of divorce — for Florence and the 
whole community. A man should suffer rather than 
relieve a sore, if doing it might spread contagion. 
Besides, it was not she proposed our marriage, but I 
myself ; and every man should bear the burden of his 
own mistakes. T uition for her Intuition , hi. 

DOCTORS 

.... Large practice that doctor of hers has ! 

.... Yes, all the society ladies go to him. 

.... All of them? 

.... Most of them. 

.... Humph! — is an expert in cramps, I sup- 
pose, which in women seem to be attributable about 
equally to what is put over the waist and feet, and 
to what is not put over the spine and shoulders. 
In the olden time, when a man married, he had 
to have a doctor of divinity around; now it seems 
to be a doctor of medicine. In a little while, as 
divorces multiply, I suppose it will be a doctor of 
laws. 

.... No other doctors? 

.... Oh, yes; when the end of our civilization 
comes, as it may, after a little, its story will have to be 
written. Then we shall need a doctor of literature. 

Where Society Leads , hi. 

DOG 

A dog or woman cringing to a man, 

Because of kicks or curses? Haydn , xxv. 

DONKEY, DEMOCRATIC 

What an advertisement it is for one in public life — 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


95 


to prove both prominent and picturesque — to draw 
the world’s attention in such an interesting way! 
You know some folks dislike the democratic donkey. 
But when an artist mounts the candidates upon its 
back that sets them off! 

.... Becomes what one might term the office- 
seeker’s asset. Tuition for her Intuition , n. 

doubt, doubting, and doubts (see faith) 

And thus they talk’d, 

Till, welcoming doubt, my faith succumb’d to it; 

And all the love once making me so proud, 

Whose growth, I thought, would be so sweet and fair, 
Stung like a very thistle in my soul ; 

Each breath of theirs would blow its prickles keen, 
And sow its pestering seedlets far and wide 
O’er every pleasing prospect of my life. 

Idem , xxx. 

Doubt on empty nest sits brooding o’er the things 
that have been done. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xvi. 

Introducing dusk to darkness, dodging doubt to 
crawling night. Idem , Dreaming , xxxv. 

.... Had you a glimpse of God like no one else’s 
You would not speak of it? 

.... Why not? 

.... It might 

Subject Him to the insult — might it not? — 

Of human doubt? 

.... You are a strange soul. 

Dante , I., I. 

At last, he learn’d 

How faith reacts on doubt; if truth be sought, 

How most for those who most have ask’d and yearn’d 
Ring echoes from the boundary walls of thought. 

A Life in Song: Daring , lix. 

The world keeps rolling on from day to night. 
None always dwell where always glows the light 
When darkness comes, and doubt assails the mind, 
Then light and faith come following swift behind. 

Dante , 11., 2. 


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A POETS CABINET 


Strangely led, 

Through doubtful ways, he thought, toward doubtful 
ends, 

Till doubts had wrought reaction, — as when clouds 
That course on clouds, at last, bring lightnings forth 
That clear them off. Ideals Made Real , lxviii. 

Yet all whose learning brings them fame to last 
Begin by doubting what earth claims it knows. 

Why should not their true follower do the same? 
Think not the present can but phase the past. 

The fire whose dying brand so steadfast glows 
Once proved its life through flickerings of its flame. 

Princeton Cemetery. 
He lets his own thought lead him; and you know 
Men led by thought are often led to doubt. 

Dante , i., 2. 

And doubt rose round his growing powers of thought, 
Like vapors reeking from the refuse heap’d 
On undevelop’d germs in early June. 

Perchance his manhood’s fruit was ripening then. 

A Life in Song: Note 111. 
Where springs from will 
One wise effect that does not follow doubt? 

One choice that does not weigh alternatives? 
Doubt comes with waverings of the balances 
Before the heavier motive settles down. 

Let those who feel so sure their views are right, 
Dissolve my doubt : — I dare to doubt if they 
Walk not by knowledge rather than by faith. 

Haydn , xliii. 

Believe me, there is faith so full and deep 
That all the surface-doubts that o’er it sweep 
Are fog-banks to its ocean, — fill the skies 
Amid inactive hours, but shift and rise 
With each new change that brings a sun or storm. 
Our mortal doubts are conjured up by form, 

Not substance, when weak insight fails to reach 
Beneath the vapory whiffs of human speech. 

They come to him whose wars are waged at words, 

A knight, who at some whirring windmill girds 
To wound the wind that whirls it, nor will know 



How, all its chairs made vacant one by one, 

Th’ applause rose thinner at his bachelor club. 

See page 176 . 







’ 



















t, I . I 
































































SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


97 


That, back of all this realm of sound and show, 

A subtle, unseen spirit works, which all 
Material means are far too weak and small 
To hold or image; that the spirit’s life 
Has power within it to survive all strife 
Of forms, at best, but fashion’d from the dust, 

Whose changing creeds are not men’s constant trust. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xxiv. 

I read that Jesus answer’d him who pray’d, 

“Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief”; 

That on the cross itself even He could cry: 

“My God, O why hast thou forsaken me?” 

And so I think, at times, these doubts of ours 
May only rise like minor preludes here, 

Ere that triumphant cadence, “It is finished.” 

Haydn , xliii. 

.... The next time that men watch me, they 
shall think so. 

.... And why? 

.... No doubt, no thought! What men conceive 
They comprehend, they cease to guess about. 

Dante , I., i. 

To doubt is charity, where to believe 
Is to condemn. Cecil the Seer , n., 2. 

To be true 

To life, when all the men that have life doubt me 
I ought to join with them, and doubt myself. 

Columbus , v., 2 . 

DREAM 

Such a sight has oft allured me, rous’d by morn’s first 
herald-gleam, 

Floating up the edge of slumber in a just awaking 
dream. 

Angel forms, no man could number, circled in a band 
of light 

Round a chariot framed of splendor, drawn by steeds 
of dazzling white. 

Softly sped they o’er the vapors; and, with wings of 
texture rare, 

Woke low throbs of murmuring music, as they lightly 
struck the air. 


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A POETS CABINET 


And the chariot bore a Being with a smile so sweetly 
bright, 

One could better paint, than it, the fragrance of that 
summer night. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming, xn. 

DREAMING 

A blockhead may take pride 
In never dreaming. Blocks are n’t made for it, — 
Live not in clouds. Yet clouds not often glide 
O’er barren soil; nor rich dreams often flit 
O’er minds too poor to yield the deed such dreams will fit. 

Idem , Daring , lxvi. 
Think you ’t is by the sword 
That one can set a soul, while living, free? 

Ah, not by deeds but dreaming does the spirit, 
Itself uplifted, lift up those about it. 

Dante, I., 2. 

DREAMING MAN 

A dreaming man is not a dangerous foe; 

For dreams portend their opposites. Just when 
He wings his whims to heaven, he wakes in hell. 

Idem . 

DREAMLAND 

My friend, thus widow’d, caused that our school’s 
head, 

Already nodding o’er his noonday pipe, 

Should beck at sever’d dreams with one nod more, 
And so consent to our dreams. 

Room-mates made, 

We slamm’d his door and woke him; not ourselves. 
Our dreamland lasted. Ideals Made Real , in. 

But beneath its boughs a dreamland, like a labyrinth, 
unwove. 

There were paths like those of Eden. There were 
mountains high and grand, 

Hung to wild, fantastic fortunes o’er a dizzy dearth 
of land. 

There were lakes all diamond-dappled; there were 
streams that rushed at meres 
Arch’d by bridges, rainbow-girdled, where the high 
spray leapt their piers. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


99 


There were flowers that flush'd through vistas, where 
alternate floods of sheen, 

Rich as tides of amber, flow’d through shaded banks 
of evergreen. 

There were trees whose broad, high branches cradled 
all the stars o’erhead. 

There were lawns whose tender grasses could not stand 
a fairy’s tread. 

Orchards, gardens, halls, and temples fill’d the fields; 
and in them seem’d 

Every creature, of which fancy, past or present, e’er 
had dream’ d, — 

Birds and beasts of all conditions, dancing, dozing, 
forward, shy, 

Strown, as if on isles that throng’d an endless ocean in 
the sky. A Life in Song: Dreaming , xvn. 

DREAMS 

Felt as one when streams 
Upon his waking eyes the morning light 
That swings the golden goal-gates of his dreams. 

Idem> Daring , xlix. 
dress {see clothes) 

In my visits to the city, the one thing that I like 
the most to see is just the way you city women dress. 
How do you do it? Take your own gown now — the 
way your skirts hang — just enough above your feet 
to make these play at hide and seek, and never let the 
glance that spies them catch them. You know that 
nothing so enchains attention as play too deft to lend 
itself to prey. The Two Paths , 11. 

.... You and sister seem to think that you must 
have a new and different hat and gown about every 
time that you step out of the front door. 

.... You wouldn’t have us going around so 
people could recognize us a block away, as they do a 
yellow dog — by the colors we always wear? 

.... Well, if your set keeps on you’ll have to go 
around that way before long. All the beasts and birds 
of the world will have been butchered. None of their 
furs and feathers will be left. 

What Money Can't Buy , ill. 


100 


A POET'S CABINET 


DRESS, CONCEALMENTS OF 

Did you see their little sister Mamie’s feet and under- 
pinnings? By Jove ! it was worth the whole show just 
to get a sight of them! What’s the use, confound it! 
of all the grown ones’ wearing those flapping, trailing 
dresses? One wouldn’t know that they had any feet 
if he couldn’t judge of them — as we have to do of all of 
them — by their younger sisters. In a perfect state 
now ” 

“ Well, well, but we’re not in a perfect state, you 
know.” 

“I think I do — yes, yes,” said the captain; “but 
that’s no reason — is it? — for rendering half our 
race — and the prettier half, at that — but little 
better than deformed? I only meant to say that, 
with society in a perfect state, the dress would 
show off natural charms, you know, whatever they 
might be.” 

“Ah! yes, but, you see, the majority of mortals 
haven’t natural charms; and, as the majority rule, of 
course they’re bound to keep their neighbors covered 
up; so general ugliness shall lose as little as possible 
from contrast with exceptional beauty.” 

“Exceptional beauty! Humph! Don’t lose your 
faith; hold on to a God of general goodness, and 
only issue bans against the exceptional ugliness of 
those who make the fashions. 

Modern Fishers of Men , hi. 

DRESS, OF WOMAN ON A MAN 

There’s one thing, boys, I’ve found that no man 
ever can do; and that is — outstrip a woman in her 
dressing. . . . Not so anxious, perhaps, to be an angel, 
and put on airs, when these drafts that we feel on 
earth have drafted us up to heaven. No wonder, the 
women surpass us in not getting hard or tipsy. Truth 
is they are tough by nature, and get tight in ways and 
stays — I wonder if squeezing the blood keeps it warm. 
That might explain why their arms and necks never 
freeze. I feel like a turkey-gobbler hung up in front 
of a shop, with neck and wings and legs all plucked, 
and what feathers are left, bunched up in a tuft at the 
middle. The Ranch Girl , hi. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


IOE 


DRINKING 

.... Clear champagne, not so? 

.... One must drink something on a hot night 
like this. 

.... But you can’t get away from a hot time 
outside by getting up a hot time inside. 

Where Society Leads, I. 

drinking {see smoking) 

.... You men seem always very thirsty. 

.... A business man, when not at work, feels like 
a fish when out of water, so he soaks. 

.... And if his palate be not dry enough to 
take in all that flows his way, he starts a fire to do 
the work. {Lighting a cigar .) 

Tuition for her Intuition, II. 

DRONE 

.... Oh, drone, 

That I could sting you, as do bees their drones, 
That make no honey ! 

.... You do sting at times. Cecil the Seer, I. 

DUPLEXITY 

Of all the devils that ever have curst 
This earth of ours I deem the worst 
May be a duplex woman, 

Whose airs are snares that none suspect, 

And are spread where naught can souls protect 
From ruin more than is human; 

Whose thoughts, when her lover is craving a soul 
So pure he can yield to her the control 
Of all his aims and actions, 

Are weighing the worth of houses and rooms 
And dresses and diamonds and horses and grooms 
For which to sell her attractions. 

A curse to her spirit that makes bright eyes 
As blind as an owl’s, — and with gaze as wise, — 

To heaven’s light sent to assist them. 

A curse to her fangs from flesh so soft, 

And her serpent-like grace, far crueller oft 
Than aught ever stung to resist them. 

A Life in Song: Loving, xxiv. 


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A POETS CABINET 


DUST, OF WHICH MAN IS MADE 
Did you hear her comment on the sunbeams — how 
they show the dust? She is a young philosopher. 
None realize the dust that man is made of like those 
that watch the light of heaven shine through it. 

On Detective Duty , I. 

DUTY 

Oh, in worth the deeds of duty 
Rival all the claims of beauty. 

Onward world, with steadfast spinning, 

Learn to turn a perfect day. 

Work cannot go wrong for aye. 

Woes but roll to roll away. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xli. 
DUTY, DEVOTION TO, PROTECTS THE AGENT 
No mind or soul was ever harmed inside because of 
its devotion to a duty. One might as well attempt to 
harm the life that whirls the world, and all the stars 
about it. On Detective Duty } I. 

DUTY, GIVING ONE CHANCES 
.... I did but do my duty. 

.... That is what 

But very few do. It gave you your chance. 

Dante , i., 2. 

DUTY VS. EXPEDIENCY 

When they have stripped me of all things besides, 

I shall have left a clean, clear conscience, death 
And heaven. Cecil the Seer , 1. 

DUTY VS. LOVE 

A friend most pleases when, forgetting due, 

He seems to do his pleasure; but a foe, — 

Who does not shrink to feel him near enough 
To freeze one with a chill though duteous touch? 
Mere duty forms the body-part of love: 

Let love be present, and this body seems 
The fitting vestment of a finer life: 

Let love be gone, it leaves a hideous corpse! 

Haydn , xvi. 

EARLY INTEREST IN LIFE-WORK 
The best day-laborer is usually one who wakes up 
early in the morning. The best life-laborer is usually 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


103 


one who has had something of entertainment and 
interest to wake up his mind early in life. 

Music as Related to Other Arts . 

EARTHLY LIFE, AS VIEWED FROM HEAVENLY 

I dimly can recall what now appears 
A troubled, stormy sea, yet not a sea; 

And in the depth that which I call myself 
Seemed held and heaved as in some diving bell. 

But evermore in reveries and dreams, 

But most in dreams when outward sense would sleep 
My soul would be released, and rise and reach 
Fresh air, in which was breathed what gave fresh life ; 
Then, sinking downward, wake and work again, 

Till time for rest and fresh refreshment came. 

But never could my powers at work below 
Remember aught that blest them when above. 

.... And now you dream that somehow they came 
here? 

.... Oh, do not tell me that I now but dream! — 
Nay, call it heaven. — Or is the rest of sleep 
But absence from the body while we draw 
New drafts of life from that whicn gave us life? 

Cecil the Seer, 11., 2. 

EARTHLY LOVE VS. HEAVENLY 

How safely might one sail the sea of life 
If all his reckonings were but true to heaven! 

Ah, siren-like, a rivalling earthly love 

May lure to realms whose mountain heights are clouds, 

Clouds warmly hued above a cold gray shoal, 

Whose only outlines are the breakers’ caps, 

Whose only stir, the fury of the storm. 

Ideals Made Real , xxx. 

Our thoughts of good should learn to separate 
The heavenly love from its foul earthly nest. 

To hold the latter’s dead impurity 

At one with spotless life that wings on high, 

Is often to deserve — I will not judge them. 

I would I could forget them. Dante , 11., 2. 

Life is no failure in which earthly love 
Is grown and ripen’d for the world above. 

A Life in Song: Loving , lii. 


104 


A POET'S CABINET 


EASE 

There is most for us all to do, I think, 

When the heart is least at ease. 

The falls that leap the stoniest brink 

Fill most with mist the breeze. Idem , XL. 
eccentric {see odd) 

A man I see with blood and brain the kind 
Earth terms eccentric, since it finds them few; 

As wise Chinese with half -hiss’d whispers mind 
A heathen head to which they find no cue. 

For far extremes his moods were always linking, — 
The swiftest passions and the strongest will, 

The maddest fancies and the sanest thinking, 

A poet’s ken and all a plodder’s trust in drill. 

Idem , Serving , n. 

I am not one 

Has lived or worked with other men. My soul 
Has dwelt alone, and sails the waves of life 
Like some stray oil-drop lost upon the sea, 

Refusing still, however wildly tossing, 

To lose or fuse itself in things about it. 

I have so craved a mate! but, whoso came, 

The spirit that is in me would deny 
My clasping to a heart that might not beat 
In time to pulses of another’s purpose. 

So what I would caress, I dared not touch, 

For fear the rhythm throbbing in my veins 
Would prove discordant and reveal us foes. 

The Aztec God , i. 

ECHOES 

Ere the echoes that rehears’d it learn’d the tones of 
half the lay. A Life in Song: Dreaming } xn. 
EDUCATION SHOULD BE UNIVERSAL 
To be their brightest, minds need burnishing; 

And earth needs all the light that we can give it. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

EGGS, BOILED 

.... When travelling, in certain places, there is 
just one meal I always order. 

.... Humph! What’s that? 

.... Boiled eggs. I am the first to get inside their 
shells. On Detective Duty , 11. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


105 


EGOTIST, THE 

Each to his own conception is a god. 

Proclaim him this, you but concede a claim 

Long felt within. He knew it all before. 

.... The egotist ! 

. . . . Yes, but we all are that. 

The spirit, we are told, is made of air. 

Like air it is in this, — will force its way 

And feel full right to enter and possess 

Whatever space a crack or crevice opens 

The Aztec God , hi. 
Come wounds! come jeers! where were they miss’d 
By one who sought the noblest list? 

Zeal ne’er did sigh, but some drone hiss’d, 

“Be dunce with me, or egotist.” 

Wise world, that you our due begrudge us 
You yet, years hence, may understand. 

If we work out the good, so judge us; 

If ill, time then to use your brand! 

A Life in Song: Doubting , vii. 

Like a great many other people who have read little 
and thought much — about themselves — and possess, 
in addition, that susceptibility of temperament which 
causes one to be easily kindled to enthusiastic ad- 
miration for the object of his thoughts, he had arrived, 
after many years of persistent self-culture all tending 
in the same direction, at the conclusion (than which 
what could be more satisfactory?) that anything that 
he himself did not know, wish, or feel, was not worth 
knowing, wishing, or feeling. Could any conclusion, 
if communicated to others, prove more beneficial to 
them than this? Was there any better method of 
instruction or appeal through which another’s soul 
could become more completely disinthralled from all 
the petty annoyances that come to one so blind to the 
conditions of perfect peace as still to study, doubt, and 
struggle? What more noble aim, then, could thrill 
his trembling locks, explode his tones, or animate his 
arms, than to become the prophet of what he acted as 
if he thoroughly believed to be the kingdom within 
himself? — the Lord of which, when ruling within so 
great a man as he was, needed apparently, in his 


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A POETS CABINET 


opinion, to exercise no contemporaneous lordship 
within the minds or consciences of any who surrounded 
him. Modern Fishers of Men f vn. 

EMBRACED 

Who would let a soul, nor fear it, 

Be embraced with no love near it, 

Both to cherish and revere it? 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxiv. 

ENFRANCHISEMENT, A WIFE’S {see WOMEN) 

Only wise, 

As owls that blink at light ! — so blind — nor see 
What day dawns with a wife’s enfranchisement; 
Ambitious, but forgetting that the meek 
Inherit heaven, or that the oppressor dwarfs 
His own surroundings; that if pride stoop not, 

Then must the soul; that earthly lords must bend, 
And lift their consorts to their own prized seats, 

As equals, queens; or else must house with slaves, 
And make the slavish habits there their own. 

Ideals Made Real , x. 

ENGAGEMENT, A COLLEGE 

.... And what is a college engagement? 

.... Why, that of a home-sick boy, who wants a 
mother or sister. The Ranch Girl , I. 

ENGLAND 

And then — who could describe in lines of rhyme, 

Nor circumscribe, the joy, so keen yet kind, 

That England holds for souls of every clime, 

Who honor aught that nobler makes the mind; 
Where grand cathedrals throb with chorals breathing 
Through forms of grace their life of gracious thought ; 
And ancient towers decay, with ivy wreathing 

Fair forms of fresher art round all the ruin wrought. 
Nor could mere words one’s eager wish appease, 

When striving to depict an English home, 

Where no crude care intrudes on cultur’d ease, 

And service vies but to exalt its own. 

God bless thee long, our own land’s mother-nation — 
Most motherly when proud of England too! — 

God bless that loyalty to each relation, 

Inbred with British blood from lord to tenant through ! 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


107 


Our land’s descendants from thee ever boast 
Of what they first imbibed upon thy knee, — 

That stalwart Anglo-Saxon sense that most 

In church and state keeps thought and action free; 
Who fears a progress, charg’d with freedom’s mission, 
That gives to English genius broader scope? 

Earth fears far more thy foe, whose politician 

In tearing thy flag down may lower the whole world’s 
hope. A Life in Song: Serving , xxxix-xli. 

ENGLISHMEN 

I think that I should try 
The court of England. You have seen their men : — 
White skinned, the spirit just behind the face. 

Their very faults the proof they are not false; 

Too impudent for truthlessness, too bold 
To stab behind one’s back, too proud of push 
To trip with little tricks, too fond of sport 
To keep one down, when down. Columbus , 1., 3. 

ENJOYMENT 

Enjoyment is the man’s most heartfelt praise 
To Him that fram’d his being. What should I, 

A child of God, do here but live God’s life? — 

Which is not now, nor then, but evermore. 

My soul must thrive the best, as best I make 
My now, eternal; my eternal, now. 

So when a storm comes, let me bar it out; 

And, braced against the present ill, grow strong; 
And when the sunshine, let me open wide 
To that which makes all nature grow more sweet. 
Thus, realizing in my earthly state 
The aim of heaven, why do I praise Him less 
Whose life is that of heaven, than those who wear 
The guises of that slattern of the soul, 

I Asceticism, shuffling toward far good, 

Slipshod and snivelling? Ideals Made Real , xlix. 
ENLARGE 

To think things larger may enlarge one’s thought. 

Dante , 1., 1. 

ENLIGHTEN 

. . . . You all make too much light of this. 

.... What better can enlighten dullness, pray, 
Than making light of it? Columbus , II., 2. 


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A POETS CABINET 


ENLIGHTENMENT 

Reclined 

Against the western slope, looked off to give 
A god-speed to the sun, and half-believed 
The blue-tint sky-sheet, held to light against 
The little town of learning that I loved, 

Could bear away with photographic art 

That which should give enlightenment to all 

The western land through which it should be trailed. 

West Mountain . 

ENLISTED 

Tho’ he himself may be misunderstood, 

Gainsaid and thwarted by the very souls 
With whom his has enlisted, if they yet 
Press bravely forward, he may feel for them, 

If less than whole love, more than interest. 

His lord-like spirit, like the spirit’s Lord, 

Content to work or wait, to do or die, 

If but the truth he serves may be supreme. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xli. 

ENTHUSIASM 

Enthusiasm is 

The essence of religion — valueless 
Without its uplift and its oversight. 

If these it lack, it is a lifeless corpse 
Not measured by its worth but want of it. 

Columbus , i., i. 
Enthusiasm needs a margin. Idem . 

envy (see jealousy) 

I hate to think it, yet at times one must, 

That some men deem mere conscious envy conscience ; 
And seem most zealous when they are but jealous. 

Cecil the Seer, I. 

When hunting sometimes, I have found that birds 
Of brightest plumage are the soonest shot. 

This is a world where many men go hunting. 

Columbus , iv., 2 . 

EQUALITY 

The nearer heaven our view-points be, 

The more of men’s equality we see. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xvii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


109 


What is one that he should thrive? 

Ah, though high he be in station, though he nobly aim 
and strive, — 

Yet the small man in his cottage and the great man 
in his hall 

Here fill equal spheres, the agents of the power at work 
in all. A Life in Song: Watching, 11. 

ESPIONAGE 

Where I hope 

No mortal will be present to profane 
Vows fit for only gods to hear, some form, 

With eyes omniscient as a very devil’s 
Incarnate in an earthly messenger, 

Outspawns its fouling shadows on the light 
Like night-shades to the lost who pray for day. 

The Aztec God, in. 

EULOGIES 
If currents in view 
Are to crystallize too 

Like things of the past, the winter will show it. 
The future must rate 

The fruit of the present : so shrewd men wait, 

And but of the dead 
Are their eulogies read. — 

Good souls, they never will let one rest 
Until he is borne to the land of the blest! 

Unveiling the Monument . 
EVEN, GETTING, WITH THE LOW 

There is no such thing 
As getting even with a low-lived soul, 
Without degrading one’s own self. 

Cecil the Seer, in, 2. 

EVIL UNIVERSAL 

The well-made locks and legal barriers 
By which the best philanthropist avers 
Distrust in men ; the long sad list of crimes 
In lawyer’s lore; the armies of all times 
With men so elate to man them; anarchy 
Whose brute force prostrates all prosperity 
Till shot and steel instate it ; toil that schemes 
For self or steals another’s; rest that dreams 
Of vice and wakes in vileness; conscience, care, 


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Disease, and death, — alike one record bear; — 

All show the trace of evil gone before, 

Whose trail is clear to all, but clear yet more 
To those who strive most hard to walk aright, 

Yet walk misled where but the past sends light. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xxi. 
EXAMPLE 

All men who try 

To glorify the Lord on high 

Must prove His goodness through their own. 

They cannot lead one toward His throne, 

Save through the Godlike traits alone 
That their transfigured lives have shown. 

Idem , Doubting , xliii. 
Not skill to chide another’s pride 
Can make a wise or welcome guide; 

But he the best for noble deeds 
Inspires his kind, who best succeeds 
In finding what his own soul needs. 

Though others’ need to his be small, 

He may be less, yet more than all. 

Nay, God gives each an equal call, 

With ill to bear and good to share 
And, whether it be full or spare, 

Some truth to show the Godlike there. 

Idem , xliv. 

EXAMPLE AND INFLUENCE 

How can 

I pray the gods to give me light, if those 
That have been sent to lead me where it shines 
Forever stand betwixt my soul and it? 

The Aztec God , u. 

EXAMPLE, IN A LEADER 
Those are most worth our help on earth 
Whose eyes look up, and he who stands above them, 
Would he fulfill their soul’s ideal, must show 
A life worth while their looking up to see. 

Idem , iv., i. 

EXCEPTIONAL DEEDS 

Our deeds that are exceptional appear the rule to those 
who see us only once. Tuition for her Intuition , I. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


hi 


EXCESS OF SERVICE IN NATURE ( see OVERFLOW) 
Think not that every leaf that sprouts in spring 
Must be a stem straight-pointed toward a flower; 
That every bud must bring a blossom-nest 
In which to hatch and home a future fruit. 

Full many a leaf can only catch the shower 
And quench the dry limb’s thirst; full many a bud 
Grow bright alone as might a short-lived spark 
Aglow to show some source of kindled fragrance — 
Aglow to show itself a part and partner 
Of that excess of service in which all 
The starry worlds are joined, as, hung beneath 
Heaven’s dome, like golden censers brimmed with fumes 
Of smouldering myrrh, their God-enkindled fires 
Now flash, now fail, while souls, awe- thrilled to thought 
Both trust and fear their fires’ unfailing Source. 

Berlin Mountain . 

EXCITEMENT 

You hunger for excitement, man. You hail 
The trump of war, the tramp of onset, all 
That sweeps you on where drafts of life and love 
Fan up the flames that flicker in the breast 
And set the whole form’s trembling veins aglow. 

The Aztec God , I. 

EXCLUSIVENESS, IN SOCIETY 

If you want to be “of the few, ” you must take care 
to let people know that you are not “of the many.” 

Where Society Leads , I. 

EXPECTATIONS 

Fresh expectations, like fresh eggs, may hatch. 

Not so with stale ones, though, however white. 

Columbus , i., 3. 

EXPECTATIONS, YOUTHFUL 

Frail, faint heart! 

And it had so much life! I thought its thrills 
The rilling of a fount whose brook should flow 
Out to a sea of life, as wide as earth, 

And upward to a golden clouded heaven. 

Why, all my moods — they banner spring-time yet, 
The buds but just unfolding, scarce a flutter 
To balm the breeze with their sweet promises! 


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Must all be now cut off? — uprooted? — what? 

The prickliest cactus clutches, at the last, 

The flower toward which it grows ; and shall these nerves, 
All tender to the touch of life, so live 
Themselves, so hungry to be fed, yet void 
Of all with which hope pledged them to be filled — 
Shall they be cheated out of this they craved? 

Are all the visions of the fancy frauds 
That fool our faith, anticipating joy 
That never comes? Is that mysterious power 
That prompts our lives to be, and pushes on 
Toward what it promised them, so vilely weak 
That, like a knave who fears to be outwitted, 

It needs must lash and lure us with a lie? — 

Yet now — 0 heaven! I will not so believe it. 

I cannot; no. The Aztec God , iv., i. 

EXPERIENCE, A GUIDE TO TRUTH 

A man of sense 

Trusts first his own experience; 

Nor waives the truth he draws from thence 
For all mankind’s experiments. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxm. 
The moonlight guides us, if we have no sun. 

But forms that loom at midnight lie to those 
Who know them in the day; and in the day 
No judgment of the distance can be true 
Except for him who pushes on to reach it. 

Columbus , II., 2. 

It is our trying 

That turns the latch-key of experience, 

Whose door swings inward quite as oft as outward. 

Dante , I., i. 

EXPERIENCE, ONE’S OWN, INDICATED BY HIS CHARACTER 

Each passing season circling round a tree 
Leaves, clasping it, a ring; the rings remain, 

So seasons past remain about the soul : 

And men can trace its former life far less 
By tales the tongue may tell, than by the range 
And reach of that which circumscribes the mood, 
Including or excluding right or wrong. 

Haydn , xxix. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 113 

EXPERIENCES, UNPLEASANT, ARE TRANSITORY 
Only have a little faith and patience. Experiences 
like yours never last forever. They are like bad dreams. 
Sometimes, the.very first hour after one wakes, one 
feels as well as if he had had no dream. 

Where Society Leads , 111. 

EXPERT 

No man who is no expert risks a judgment 
On questions experts only can decide, 

Without revealing his own lack of judgment. 

Dante , II., 2. 

expression {see repression and words) 

A mood but half expressed is all distressed. 

The Aztec God , 11. 
Whom God inspires, though they unheeded sing, 
May be through mere expression wholly blest. 

The Solitary Singer. 
When the heart is all aglow 
With the flame of love’s desire, 

The inward fume must outward flow, 

Or smother all the fire. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xx. 
What can curse one worse 
Than force that jails expression, whether walled 
In masonry or flesh ! — Though it may be 
Fit training for a life whose brightest end 
Is death. If all men die alone, may be 
They ought to learn, ere death, to live alone. 

The Aztec God , 1. 

Themes and aims as grand as these 
Overflow the burden’d words that bear our lesser 
thoughts with ease. 

Many guiding views beyond us loom but dimly un- 
derstood : 

Many schemes are hatch’d to famish where our im- 
perfections brood. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , ix. 
He comes on plotting. — That is plain enough. 

How form and face — mere garments that they are — 
Will twist and wrinkle to a touch of thought ! 

Columbus , hi., 2. 


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114 


EXPRESSION TO FIT THE MOOD 

Go bid the flowers 
Keep back their perfume; then, perchance, may souls, 
All sweet with blooming love, keep back sweet words. 

j Haydn, 1. 


EYE 

Shone a light in her dark, deep eye 
Pure as a star, when shining 
Far in a sky whose depths defy 
All but a god’s divining. 

A Life in Song: Loving , II. 


Ay, oft I hide my eyes apace 
Beneath my eyelids’ awning; 

Too bright behind each flushing face 
A holy light seems dawning. 


Each eye I see appears a lens, 

Through which, with stolen glances, 

A realm divine my spirit kens, 

Which all my hope entrances. Idem , vm. 


EYE, MEN INFLUENCED THROUGH THE 

Try looking at them, my lady. The men that oppose 
a man will sometimes yield to a woman. The toughest 
of them can be wounded like crocodiles through the 
eye. The Ranch Girl , 11. 


EYE, STEADY, VS. DODGING 
He never holds a steady eye to greet 
The look that rests on him. It seems as if 
He feared that one might spy within his brain 
Some secret that a dodging glance could shield. 

The Aztec God , hi. 


EYE AND EYES, WHEN BLUE 
Farmer lad, where the herd will drink 
Waits a maid that bathes by the brink 
Bare brown feet; and the rill, made sweet, 
Thrills to touch her who thee would greet. 
There is more for thee in the blue of her eye 
Than in all the towns that are under the sky. 

Farmer Lad. 

I seem to see him yet, the straight brown hair 
Toss’d wildly backward from the broad white brow, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


ii5 


The sunburnt cheeks, the deep and wondering eyes, 
As blue when grand emotion swept within, 

As autumn skies are in the northwest wind, 

With just as much of heaven back of them. 

Dear boy ! A Life in Song: Note 1. 

EYES 

A sight supreme, arousing me: — 

Two bright eyes only, sparkling in the light, 

Where flush’d a face that flared, then hid itself 
Behind a travelling hood, befleck’d with dust, 

And fring’d with venturous locks of careless hair. 

Ideals Made Real , ix. 
Look up, my love, and let me see 
Those eyes of thine gaze full on me. 

One glimpse were heaven, although their light 
Should blind me to each lesser sight. 

What though their more than earthly fire 
Should turn to flame my heart’s desire; 

’T were sweet to let this life of mine 
All burn to incense at thy shrine. 

O could thy power thus make me thine, 

’T would all my coarser self refine; 

For nothing would be left of me, 

Save what should be a part of thee. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xliii. 


EYES, EXPECTANT 

When 

His troopers flash in sight here, why, these eyes 
That have been straining so to see them come 
Will scratch some blinks to cure their vision’s itching. 

Columbus , v., 1. 


EYES, EXPRESSION OF 

Her features, while not sufficiently regular to answer 
all requirements of beauty, were, nevertheless, pecul- 
iarly fascinating because cast into shade by the 
peculiar brightness of her eyes. These might have 
been called blue, but there was in them, more than in 
any other eyes that I ever saw, that constantly chang- 
ing color and expression that seems to say, “I trust 
you — no, I don’t,” which, because it sets a man to 
thinking and keeps him at it, is more likely perhaps to 


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awaken his interest in a woman than any other charm 
that she can possess. Modern Fishers of Men , n. 

EYES VS. SOUL, IN SEEING 

When their eyes are open, then they see so much 
besides that they don’t care for. It’s only when the 
eyes are shut the soul can wholly live with those it 
wholly likes to live with. 

The Little Twin Tramps , u. 

FACE, FLAMED 

My face flamed hot as if its veil of flesh 
Would burn, and bare the soul. 

Ideals Made Real , xii. 

FACING DANGER 

A man who once begins to swim a current, must 
face the way it flows — it is never safe to dash heel 
forward where one needs a head. 

On Detective Duty , in. 

FACTION 

Now who remembers faction 
Forgets his Florence. Dante , I., I. 

The trumpets call to action 

Through all the threatened land, 

No more is heard of faction, 

The time has come to band. 

What soul can see 
The state in fear, and fail to be 
Beneath the flag, enrolled with all 
That heed the trumpet’s call? 

No patriots are they who can see 
The state in fear and fail to be 
Beneath the flag, enrolled with all 
That heed the trumpet’s call. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 

FACTS AND FANCIES 

Men take too many chances 
In drawing facts from fancies. Idem , 1 . 

FAILED 

The soul succeeded though its project failed. 

He lost his outward end, indeed, but gain’d 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 117 

An inward end that, for his youthful years, 

Had far more value. 

A Life in Song: Note 111. 

FAILURE 

Failure 

.... Shows a spirit as it is. 

It throws one’s manhood into full relief, 

Stript of all circumstance and accident. 

Columbus, 11., 1. 

FAIRNESS 

If you’re fair men, to win your race, you only want 
fair play, hands off, and elbow room — a clear track, 
and the right of way. That’s what the law gives. 

The Little Twin Tramps: 111., 2. 

FAIR PLAY 

Now, now, fair play! Fair play in argument 

Will catch our thoughts before it throws them back. 

Columbus, 1., 2. 

FAITH {see CREEDS, DEEDS, HUMANITY, KNOWLEDGE, 
PROGRESS, and NATURE, material as a school) 

If still for growth in truth we trust, 

While faith can dare, it cannot die. 

With facts against it, ’t will espy 
Far distant lights that guide its eye, 

Snatch hope from talons of despair, 

And welcome flight with fancies fair. 

A Life in Song: Doubting, xvm. 
Foremost of our best possessions, faith fails not that 
can but feel; 

Yet how blest are they who know and can their 
grounds of faith reveal. 

They alone, amid the shades, where men who move 
toward mystery 

Long to know what joy or woe is yet to be their destiny, 
They alone, with heaven-lit torches, flashing light the 
darkness through, 

Can disclose beyond the gloom the looming outlines 
of the true. Idem, Dreaming , ix. 

faith and facts 

His body served the soil, but from the skies 

He breathed the spirit in with which he wrought. 


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In them he saw fair homes and cities rise. 

No facts can bury faith that lives in thought. 

The American Pioneer . 


FAITH AND REASON 

To walk by faith and not walk hand in hand with 
reason also, is to walk to ruin. 

The Two Paths , iv. 


FAITH AND THINKING 
But I was thinking 

. . . . Thinking has its dangers. 

.... Yes, but for it I should have been a priest. 

At present, am confessor but to you. 

And my advice is, — not to say to others 
What you have said to me. 

. . . . Why? 

.... It would make 


The world suspect you. 

. . . . How? — and what? 


Your faith. 


Why, say, 


. . . . Impossible! God knows — they know — 
The purpose of my life. — 

. . . . Your life! But faith — 

Is not a thing to-day of life, but talk; 

And God — He has not much to do with it. 

A man of faith, is one whose faith in those 
To whom he talks will make him talk their thoughts. 
None here will think that what you say can be. 

Columbus , iv., i. 


FAITH IN MAN AS WELL AS GOD, ESSENTIAL 

{see honor) 

.... Suppose the women cease to trust the men? 

.... Suppose they go to hell. They will go there 
no sooner if they lose their faith in man than if they 
lose it in divinity. In one regard the Mormon theory 
is right — though it applies to both the sexes — when 
faith in man is gone, all chance is gone of being saved 
oneself, or saving others. 

Tuition for her Intuition , I. 

Not all the doubts of the creeds 
Can shake their faith who find 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 119 

No selfishness back of the deeds 
Of one pure sensitive mind. 

Love and Life , xm. 

The world is wide, and wisdom strange; 

To find it one must freely range; 

And, when from this to that we change, 

We lose our friend, unless his mood 
Will justly weigh our former good 
With what is now misunderstood, 

And though he cannot see our goals, 

Have faith enough to trust our souls, — 

Faith man as well as God demands 
From every soul that near him stands. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxvn. 
FAITH, TO one’s OWN SOUL 
They are proud 

Of one who, all his lifetime, has kept faith 
With his own soul, however left alone. 

Columbus , v., 2. 
FAITHFUL, THE, VS. THE WISE 

.... The wise 

Aim not beyond their reach. 

.... The faithful aim 

Wherever they are called. Idem , 11., 1. 

FALLEN 

Look — my soul ! — a man has tumbled ; 

Shown himself a beast, and humbled 
Man and God, at whom he grumbled. — 

Moans a wife now never sleeping, 

Babes that her thin hands are keeping: — 

Waits a grave where none are weeping. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxiv. 

FALL OUT, WHEN OUR ENEMIES 

When our enemies fall out, 

’T is time that we ourselves fall in. For then 
They fight for their own cause with half their force 
And with the other half they fight for us. 

Dante , 1., 2. 

fame {see monument and posthumous) 

Ah, why should one who shrinks from sight 
Essay to push where fame’s clear light 


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Can make him but a target bright, 

Where every individual mood 
And all the best he has pursued 
Is flouted or misunderstood? — 

Where sense might rather wish to be 
A wild beast caged for men to see 
Than be a lion such as he? — 

With every word he speaks the cause 
Of public jeering or applause, 

And every one he loves, in fear 
That half the world will elbow near; 

Through life a slave to scrutiny, 

When dead, a dress’d-up effigy, 

A puppet of biography, 

That dances high or dances low 
To please the men who make him go — • 

To please the men who strip him bare, 

To bring him shame, or make him wear 
A suit striped like a convict’s, where, 

With every hue that helps his fame, 

Alternate shades insure him blame? 

Ye fools, who ne’er for wisdom sought, 

And ne’er for deeds immortal wrought, 

Ye never knew, nor fancied aught 
That near’d at all the inward thought 
Of men of truth, whose footsteps went 
Through life that was one long ascent : 

They did not seek a monument. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxxvn. 
Immortal fame . . And do you think . . that this 
Could set the heart at ease? — or think you none, 

If set at ease, can thrill with drum-like throbs 
That marshal on the spirit to success ? Haydn , iv. 

FAMILY LOVE 
How blest is the mother 
Whose boy is her lover! 

How blest is the father who seems but a brother! 
How blest all the household who all discover 
That even a babe’s life just begun 
Has a heart and a head that must be won ; 

That the youngest will with a wish has rights 
For all to respect ! 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


121 


Ah, what is there human that nature slights, 

And what in life that love can neglect! 

The petty desire of the tenderest tone 
To God is as great and as dear as one’s own. 

Love and Life , xlvii. 
FAMILY PRIDE 

No poison paralyzes thought like pride; 

No pride as poisonous as family pride. 

Dante, I., 2. 

FANATICISM 

A Moloch, clasping in his arms of fire 
Desires he kindles, but can never quench. 

Cecil the Seer, 1. 

FANCY 

Fancy is the flower of thought. 
The more of life there is, the more of flower: 

The more of thought there is, the more of fancy. 

Dante, 1., 1. 

Who think the poets’ fancies true? Their brains, 
Like helmets when their metal is the best, 

Receive the light of life and flash it back. 

None take the flash for fire. Idem. 

FANCY AND FACT 

A fresh young brain acts like a keg of beer when 
freshly brewed. You try to tap it, and at first you find 
the froth of fancy, not the flow of fact. 

On Detective Duty , v. 

The world you think in is a world of fancy. 
The world all live in is a world of fact. 

Dante, I., 2. 

Not fact-full only, but a mind that you 
Deem fanciful, is needed, would a man 
Put this and that together, and build up 
The only structure that can make his facts 
Worth knowing. Columbus, 1., 1. 

FANCY AND TRUTH 

A woman’s fancy may be near the truth. 

.... As near as fire to water. Yonder pool 
Is truth. The sunbeam it reflects is fancy. 

One water is, one fire. The Aztec God, hi. 


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FANCY AND REALITY 
Our fancies are the children of the soul, 

With rights of heritage as true as those 
Of any other form of thought. If so, 

Then their relationship may be as true — 

Though how we never now can understand — 

To that which mortals term reality. 

Dante , ill., i. 

FAREWELL 

Oh, bitter, bitter, bitter word farewell, 

So bitter when the lips belie the heart 

That knows too well that life will not fare well. 

The Aztec God , iv., i. 

FARMER 

Brought near the man, he finds his frame is bent, 

As if by long devotion to his lands ; 

His arms are brown with heat by sunlight sent 
To turn red-ripe the fruit served by his hands. 

His chest is broad, and gratefully expands 
To feel the generous air his health renew, — 

A master of his house and farm he stands, 

Who, fearing no man, dares to all be true, 

With open eyes and lips that let the soul speak through. 

A Life in Song : Daring , xv. 

FASHION 

Like bodies why should souls, forsooth, 

Not be well padded, stay’d, and laced 
To suit the world’s prevailing taste, 

Till through the form no truth is traced? 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxix. 
The most beautiful thing in the world is the human 
face and form, the most attractive thing the human 
mind and soul. Your set paint the face and upholster 
the form till the whole personality comes at one from 
behind a mask. What sense is there in making life 
uninteresting? The most charming sight conceivable, 
I think, is a fresh, pretty girl in a clean, unadorned 
white gown. What Money Can't Buy t hi. 

FASHION, AND WOMEN 
You flaunt the flag of fashion in a crowd 
And, in the bee-line of their rush to tail 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


123 


Its leading, one could pick the women out 
Without their having skirts on. Columbus , 111., 1. 

FAST LIFE 

Suppose this heart a toy 

Wound up to run through just so many ticks 

.... I see, you mean a fast life is a short life. 
.... The fleetest foot is first beside the goal. 

. . . . But if the goal be high as well as far 

.... The bird of fleetest wing may fly the highest. 

The Aztec God, 1. 

FATE AND FREE WILL 

. . . .Must all new growth be planted in the earth? 
... .Is any germ that grows not planted there? 

. . . .What trains it then? 

.... Some say that where it falls, 

In age, clime, country, family, fleshly form, 

The mighty wheels of matter — earth and moon, 

And sun and planets, all the unseen stars 
Of all the universe that round it roll — 

With one unending whirl grind out its fate; 

Yet only earthly fate. Flung to and fro, 

And torn by care and toil and pain and loss, 

The spirit knows in spirit it is free; 

And, true to its high nature, may pass through 

The terror of the ordeal with all 

The finer flour of nature’s grain preserved. 

.... So though careers be fated, souls are free? 
.... The consciousness of freedom comes from force 
Which is of heaven; the consciousness of fate 
From that which is of earth; and both are true; 

Or that which makes all feel them both is false. 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2. 

FATHER, THE HEAVENLY 
Ah, who that thinks, can yet believe it true 
That earth has not a common Father? — who 
Can deem that any soul is wholly driven 
From light that blesses all. Some ray has given 
Some glimpse to each one who has heavenward striven. 

Idem: Seeking, xix. 
father’s VS. mother’s INFLUENCE 
I think the father starts the tendency, the mother 


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molds it, then they both together, when life has left 
their handling, and been launched, stand on the shores, 
like builders of a ship, and hope the storms will not 
have strength to wreck it. On Detective Duty , I. 

FAULT-FINDING 

When you visit your neighbor’s garden you ought to 
judge it by what appears on the surface. If you choose 
to dig down into the dirt and soil yourself, it is not his 
fault but yours. What Money Can't Buy , u. 

FEARS 

You fill my soul with fears for you; but, ah, 

With fears that are so sweet, again I fear 
That my own soul is what I most should fear. 

.... The wise fright off their fears by facing them. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 
FEEDING IN SOCIETY 

Most fish that I know of can be caught by bait. 
Throw overboard enough to keep busy the mouths 
that are opening to you, and though you seem some 
distance from the general current, it may prove more 
difficult to keep out of society than to get into it. 

Where Society Leads , I. 
FEELING 

Who can know 

Round what conceits our surging fancies foam 
When depths of feeling rise, and overflow, 

And swamp the reason in their floods of woe? 

Alas, one can but feel (while all sweep on, 

And, flitting through their mist and darkness, show 
Grim ghosts of buried good with features wan) 
Sensations too acute for thoughts to poise upon. 

A Life in Song: Daring , xxxix. 
The surest way to keep from feeling things 
Is not to touch them. The Aztec God , n. 

FEELING, DEPENDENT ON THOUGHT 
The soul of feeling is in thought, not so? 

Then one, to feel refresh’d, must think she bathes 
In rills that reach her from the freshest springs. 

Ideals Made Real , xvi. 

FEELING IN MEN AND WOMEN 
No one admires a man who yields to feeling. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


125 


.... And few a woman who does not yield to it. 
.... Strong argument against a woman ruler! 
.... And yet some say the sexes are alike. 

.... Will never grow alike ’till men grow soft and 
women sharp. 

.... And both grow like the devil — the one 
because they have no strength, the other because 
they have no sweetness to outwit him. 

.... You ever note how suffragettes object to 
have us praise up sweetness in a woman? 

Tuition for her Intuition, 11. 

FEELINGS VS. FACTS, IN FELLOWSHIP 

With outer facts we merely fashion faction, 

In inner feeling we find fellowship. 

Dante , 11., 1. 

FEET 

To and fro the folds of her gown, 

With fair little feet below them, 

To and fro and up and down 
Daintily swung to show them. 

A Life in Song: Loving , II. 
FELLOWSHIP, THAT BRINGS COMPETITION 
That strange stress 

Of human fellowship which sometimes makes 
A fellow-worker, from his very zeal 
To help another, elbow him aside, 

Had seemed to force me to a precipice 
As real as any that my feet could find; 

And I must fight, or fall; and if I fought 
Must fight myself and fight my every friend. 

West Mountain. 

FEVER 

How marvellously throng’d with strange weird shapes 
Deep halls of fancy loom, when lighted up 
By fires of fever. Haydn , xxii. 

FIDELITY TO MAN, SAME AS TO GOD 
You think fidelity to man can grow 
From germs of infidelity to God? 

You think that questioning the forms men most 
Esteem proves high esteem for men themselves? 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 


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FIGURES 

.... You speak in figures. 

.... We all five in them. 

.... What then? 

.... Why, they are beautiful. 

.... And this 

Gives fife its beauty? 

.... Ay, and interest. 

For every time a spirit veiled in them 
Reveals itself, why, it anticipates 
The resurrection of the soul, not so? 

And that brings heaven. 

.... Then to reveal myself 

.... Is very much in such a world as this — 
When owning so much that is worth revealing. 
.... You jest. 

.... I am in earnest. When one needs 
More strength of spirit, nothing save a spirit 
Can ever give it. You have given me yours. 

Columbus , ii., I. 

FIGURES LIKE WORDS SHOULD BE TRUE 
A figure of a man untrue to the conditions of nature 
would be no more out of place in painting or sculpture 
than the words of a man untrue to the same would be 
in poetry. 

Painting , Sculp., and Arch, as Rep. Arts , II. 

FINE VS. COARSE MEN 
.... Fine man. 

.... No; not what I call fine. 

.... Because the man has risen in fife? — If 
one shake pebbles in a pail, the fine ones fall, the 
coarse ones rise, you think? 

The Little Twin Tramps , v. 

FIRE, PLAYING WITH 

Dangerous to play with fire! All easy enough 
beginning it; but when it gets to burning — well, 
is like a crack there in the dam. Your little 
finger, when it starts, can check the flood and 
stop the leak; let go a time, the strongest man 
who tried to stem it would be drowned. 


Idem , I. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


127 


FIRES IN THE HEART 

Great fires are kindled in a moment only 
Where hearts are tinder, and a glance a spark. 

The Aztec God , hi. 

FISHER 

You never saw a fisher catch a fish 

Whose hook would not get tangled in the line. 

Columbus, 1., 3. 

FIST 

The fist is fashioned for the use of God 
In just as true a sense as is the finger, — 

What grasps a sword as that which guides a pen. 

Dante, ill., 2. 

FLAG, THE AMERICAN 

Hail, all hail, the flag above us. In its blue more bright 
Shine the stars to guide our way than in the dome of 
night; 

Higher aims the hope that sees them, for their spotless 
white 

Symbols the pure light of freedom. 

Hail, all hail, the flag above us. Nature never knew, 
In the dawn’s red ladder-bars where daylight climbs 
to view, 

Stripes that brought as fair a day as these anon shall do, 
When all the world turns to freedom. 

Hurrah ! Hurrah ! beneath the flag to be ! 

Hurrah ! Hurrah ! its loyal wards are we ! 

Where the Stars and Stripes are flying over land or sea, 
Under the flag there is freedom. 

Hail the Flag. 

FLATTERY 

No friendship that is true 
Was ever caught or kept by flattery. 

Dante, 1., 2. 

FLESH 

Does ever the slightest move of mine 
With rhythm so fill the air, 

That her veins all beat 
With throbs more sweet, 

Than if she were breathing a breeze divine, 

And a god were passing there? 


128 


A POET’S CABINET 


Can ever my flesh appear so fair, 

And the blood so warm below 
That the gentlest touch 
Is all too much? — 

Nor her tingling nerves can bear 
The joys that through them flow? 

A Life in Song: Loving , xliv. 

FLIGHTY 

They call him flighty. 

.... So are birds — and so 

Are — angels 

.... What? 

.... And every kind of life 

Above the common. Columbus , I., 2. 

FLIGHTY MINDS 
These flighty minds 

That cut connection with the world’s demands 
Are sure to have a limping time of it, 

If ever they get down to useful work. Dante, I., 
flirt ( see courting and suitors) 

I watch’d a man and maid, to-day: 

Each dimm’d the other’s eyes with spray. 

He dash’d from his life’s dregs unseen 
What pleased the lady’s wistful mien, — 

A maid not vicious, yet I ween 
Not loath to be, with open eyes, 

His mate whom honor could not prize. 

Ah, lust is lush in flatteries wise! 

Full well she liked her dash of danger 
With such a spicy, saucy stranger — 

But let them pass. For conquest girt, 

The man a rake, the maid a flirt, 

Will get, when caught, their own desert; 

Be prey; and prey is always hurt. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxix 
Forsooth, if beauty pleases me, I smile; 

If gracefulness beguile me, gaze at it ; 

If wisdom awe me, offer my respect. 

Good art I laud; with fancy, am a poet; 

And with emotion, an enthusiast. 

What then? — Am I a hypocrite? — How so? — 



Awake, asleep, throned constant o’er my heart, 

I served this image all intangible, 

This photographic fantasy. 

See page 187. 











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SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


129 


Must all our sympathy be personal? 

Must one appropriate all that he would praise? 

Is beauty such a flower, or is a man 
So much a beast, that, having taste for it, 

He needs must go and gorge it down ? — Go to ! — 

I watch the fair thing; of its fragrance quaff; 

Then leave for others. Ideals Made Real , xxxm. 

Ah me, but I pity the race 
If one with his beast of a face 
Can win a woman like that, 

By dancing attendance, and holding his hat, 

And grinning and bowing to see her nod 
As if he were playing the ape to her god. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xvn. 
FLOGGING CHILDREN 

These children are like eggs — all white outside — • 
but what they are inside you never know till you have 
cracked them {giving bertha a box on the ears ) . 

.... Oh, now, please, not that! I want to gain 
her confidence. 

.... Her what? You never saw my husband 
break a colt. He starts by flogging. 

.... Children, though, have minds; and what 
controls a mind best is its wish and not our whiplash. 
That never cuts below the outside skin. I want to 
reach the soul. 

.... Well, really, now! — of all the weak old women! 
But you can train your colt the way you please; for 
when it kicks, ’twill not be in my circus. 

On Detective Duty , v. 

FLOWER 

O, if as my life began, 

I had only bloom’d as a flower, 

A smallest flower in a vine that ran 

Beneath her feet, or climb’d to her bower, 

She might have pluck’d me and held me tight 
In her warm moist hand, or pour’d the light 
Of her soul-bright eyes on my wondering view, 

Till with love they had burn’d me through and through. 
She might have lifted, and coil’d me there, 

Caress’d by a tress of her trembling hair; 


9 


130 


A POETS CABINET 


Or let me lie all day on her breast, 

Where the lace-folds throb like nerves of the blest; 
And then if aught I could be in that hour, 

Or aught I could do with the life of a flower 
Could add to the store of her charms, and make 
Her form more fair for my poor sake, 

My making her sweet life sweeter seem 
Would bring me a bliss that I could not dream. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xiv. 

FLOWERS FOR THE DEAD 

We mortals eat. 

But think you that ghosts deem eating a treat? — 
No hollow within have they to fill, 

No blood to flow, no nerve to thrill, 

But get you flowers, all fresh and sweet, 

Of all things leaving the world at death, 

There is nothing of which we know but breath. 

And what but fragrance can they bear 
The whole of whose bodies are merely air? 

The Last Home Gathering . 
FOE, A MAN VS. WOMAN 
A man-foe is a brute, a shark that whacks 
The spirit’s prow and whirls it from its course. 

A maid may be a devil seizing on 

The spirit’s helm to turn it where she will. 

Her victim though — he thinks her will is his. 

You never knew a man to dodge the touch 
Of love-like fingers feeling for his heart. 

That heart held once within a grip so gained, 

Will take each wrench that wrings its life-blood out 
To be its own pulsation. The Aztec God> I. 

FOES, NOT TO BE KILLED 
Who made me heaven’s avenging messenger? 

Or bade me cull for those high gardeners there 
What grow in nights of earth to greet their davrn? 

I should not know them foes but for their guise. 

And what is all their alien flesh but guise 
A little nearer to their souls? It gone, 

What would they be but spirits, freed from space, — 

From all the need of trampling others down 

To find a place to stand in for themselves? — Idem . 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 131 

FOLLY 

To flay a folly slays it. 

A Life in Song: Daring , xlv . 

FOOL 

To fool 

With fools is feeding folly. 

.... Feed a fool 

On folly, and he grows so fat with it 
That soon all wisdom’s world that he would sit on, 
Would it not die itself, must make him diet. 

Columbus , II., 2. 

FOOLED, IT TAKES A FOOL TO BE 

All men start Freshmen, and, to learn their places, 
need hazing. So the Sophomores get their fun — but 
yet discriminate — put like with like. They never 
haze where finding nothing hazy. If you uncork 
men, rid them of their brains, you merely further 
what, before you came, they, on their part, were at 
work fermenting. No fun can make a fool of any- 
body until he makes a fool, first, of himself. 

On Detective Duty , 11. 

FOOLS 

Fools! — Yet without fools, where were sovereignty 
For wise men? — they would find it harder work 
To do earth’s thinking for it; harder work 
To string the nerves that center in one’s brain 
Through all the mass, and rein it to one’s will. 

Columbus , hi., 2. 

FOOTFALLS 

Footfalls, light as dreams’, may wake the slumbering 
soul’s activity, 

Rouse the source whence thought and feeling issue 
toward their destiny, — 

Toward the good, if lured by movements where a 
pathway leads to weal ; 

Toward the ill, if turning only where the wiles of craft 
appeal. A Life in Song: Dreaming , 1. 

FOOTSTEPS, IN A WILDERNESS NIGHT-STORM 
. . . . Hark! There seems human rhythm in this hell. 
What hot pursuit is it comes burning through 
These crackling branches? The Aztec God , 1. 


132 


A POET'S CABINET 


FOP 

Whose jingling pocket-toys 
Outweigh’d his brain, a fop and fawning fool, 

Too mean to join in others’ jokes or joys, 

The gull of all the girls, the butt of all the boys. 

A Life in Song : Daring , L. 
FORCE, AND SUCCESS {see TYRANNY) 

Fanatic ! Do you think in men’s mad rush, 

Each toward his own life’s goal, they wrest the power 
That makes another serve them, without work? — 
Skill? shrewdness? tact? and forcing to the wall, 

Or down the precipice, each weaker rival? 

. . . . I do, if power that crowns them come from God. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

FORCE, APPLIED TO THE SPIRIT 

Each time you try to mold a spirit’s life 
With fingers grappling from the fist of force, 

You clutch but at the air, at what is far 
Too fine for force to handle. 

The Aztec God , iv., I. 

Vain souls, 

Trained on the earth to influence men through force, 
In realms where spirits have not forms that force 
Can harm, must find their occupation gone. 

Cecil the Seer , n., 2. 

FORCE, WHEN COMMUNICATING TRUTH {see THOUGHT 
and truth) 

No fighting of error by force does aught 
But change the statement not the thought. 

To ponder and halt 
Are seldom all fault; 

A natural smile 
Has in it no guile; 

But many a false array of zeal 

Has frightened from frankness, and so from weal ; 

And many a blast of pious hate 

Been blown by the devil to train his mate. 

Love and Life, xliii. 

If deeds go astray, no force men know 
Can check what nature has made to flow. 

If wrong attract, and right estrange, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


133 


Then love must enter, and subtly change 
What courses forth from the soul below. 

Idem , xliv. 

Naught, forsooth, 

Thrives less where force restrains it than the truth. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xlvi. 

FORCE TOGETHER WITH CARESSES 

.... You force the boy, and he will use his fists. 
The men might do it. 

.... With ladies? 

.... When mosquitoes buzz around, the men they 
sting hit anything in reach. The truth is that your 
method is at fault. You try to force men’s actions, and 
expect the sort of treatment due to gentleness. ’Tis 
risky work to ply a whip, with one hand, and to try 
caressing with the other. 

Tuition for her Intuition , hi. 

FORCE VS. LOVE 

The child is ruled by love ; grown people often must 
be ruled by force. Love using feeling tends to make 
love perfect. Force, using feeling, tends to violence. 

Idem , 1. 

FORCE VS. NATURAL INCLINATION 

God gave you beauty — to be seen! 

And grace to bless this dear, sweet home. What power 
Would snatch you from us? make a very hell 
Of what might else be heaven? — Think you ’tis love? 
Not so; it only hates love; plays the part — 

Not of the Christ who yielded up his life. 

But of the world that made him yield it up; 

It only trusts in force, in force that lies; 

And now that it can hold you with a vow 
Which but deceit could claim that God enjoin’d, 

It seizes you to plunge you down, down, down, 

To feel the full damnation of a faith 
That can believe the voice within the soul 
A lying guide which cannot be obey’d 
Without foul consciousness of inward sin, — 

To plunge you down, and hold you till the cells 
Of your pure, guileless heart, all stain’d and steep’d, 
Drip only dregs of stagnant viciousness! Haydn , LI. 


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A POETS CABINET 


FOREIGN HUSBANDS 

.... Everything will be all right again. Think of 
it, mother, all right again! 

.... Yes; you will have become a Countess — 
.... And have gotten rid of the Count; and then 
have become an American again with an American 
husband! 

.... You think that last possession particularly 
desirable? 

.... You wouldn’t ask that, if you knew as much 
as I do about foreign husbands. 

Where Society Leads , hi . 

FOREIGN TRAVEL 

Friends came and urged him, other aims displacing, 
To court the favors of a foreign shore, 

Assuring him that there the airs more bracing 
Would kindle in his veins the healthful heat of yore. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xxii . 

FORGIVENESS, A SENSE OF 

.... Your faith means faith that God forgives. 

If he forgive you, why not feel forgiven? 

.... Though the Lord forgive, 

In spirit how can spirits feel forgiven 

Ere they undo the wrong their lives have wrought? 

Ere this had been undone, not even laws 

Of Moses let the trespasser receive 

The benefit of sacrifice; and how 

Could heavenly joys crown even perfect love 

Save as it served the soul it once had harmed? 

. . . . But how and where can spirits right their 
wrong? 

.... Wherever spirits influence the spirit. 

. . . . Ah, then, through others’ lives they work 
their work? 

. . . . Perchance they may; perchance they may do 
more. Cecil the Seer , n., 2. 

form and forms ( see significance ) 

“Yet none,” he soon had said, “could really solve 
All riddles hidden in the forms outlined 
By nature’s curves and angles, or amid 
The play of her fair features, made more fair, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


135 


Like human faces, by the thoughts beneath, 

Read all that so has thrill’d in every age 
The spirits of the wisest and the best.” 

A Life in Song: Prelude . 
Yield in form you say? — 

In form our frames but vehicle the truth ; 

Yet by its vehicle the world will rate it. 

When comes the splendor of a monarch’s march 
Men cheer his chariot, not his character. 

Should I let mine trail, broken, bruised, bemired, 
The world would hiss both car and occupant. 

Dante , III., 2. 

Only fools have faith 
In forms they have not wit to find unfrocked. 

Not sages even see the spirit through them. 

The Aztec God , 1. 

The ringing strings within his harpsichord 
Would seem to call toward form that formless force 
Enrapturing so the spirit. Haydn , x. 

“Alas, how many a thought,” he said at last, 
“Whose accents reach us through the rustling blast, 
Or meaning seems inscribed in circling rills, 

And outlines of the rocks, the trees, the hills, 

Is void of purport to the soul whose eyes 
Have never yet been taught to know and prize 
The purpose underneath ! Forms can impart 
Their import only to a feeling heart. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , ix. 

FORM AND SPIRIT {see DOUBT, REGALIA, RITES, 
RITUALISM, and spirit) 

As if, forsooth, a mere material guise 
Could ever veil the spirit from the eyes 
Of Him men worship, or, by outward show, 

Atone for wrong still strong in souls below. 

Can it be true that sin can disappear 
From lives made right but to the eye and ear? 

What can their spirits be but dead, indeed, 

Who neither feel their faith nor think their creed? 

Idem , xlix. 

The Spirit formed the forms 
To fit the life? — they fitted life that was; 


136 


A POETS CABINET 


But life, if life, will grow; the life of love 
Has not yet fill’d the scope around, above, 

Of heavens that for it wait. What form’d the forms 
Can still be forming them. — If forms exist 
Wherein no Spirit works, no present life, — 

The things are hollow. Haydn , Li. 

Our faith in forms may trust a God- void shrine, 
Where nothing that is worshiped is divine; 

May look to human systems, made to fit 
Not all the truth, but only part of it, 

To finite frames wherein the infinite lies 
Defined so well that, in the compromise 
Betwixt the faith and form, whate’er we view, 
Contracted, clipp’d, and only halfway true, 

Is wholly harm’d. 

A Life in Song : Seeking , xlvi. 

A hollow form 

The Devil flies for, like a flying squirrel 
For hollow tree- trunks ; and when once within, 

But half disguised inside his robes of white, 

Loud chanting out mere ceremonious cant, 

He tempts toward his hypocrisy an age 
That knows too much of Christian life, at last, 

For heathen life to tempt it. Haydn , LI. 

FORMALISTS, AND THEIR CONVERSION 
It seems that even formalists like him 
Can see some spirit through a form; but what? — 
One time upon a mountain top, I saw 
My own shape magnified on clouds about me. 

How many men in earth’s high places find, 

Looming on clouds of false regard about them, 

False forms of self, distorted in their size! 

To waken such to their own true position, 

Thank heaven for precipices! When they fall, 
Their views of God and self, turned upside down, 
May bring, at last, conversion. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

FORTUNES, ACCUMULATING 
What men term fortune grows like a snowball, 
slowly at the start, but gathers faster as its weight 
gets greater. The Two Paths , i. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


13 7 


FOUNDATIONS 

Hard strove the youth, aye feeling, while he 
wrought, 

That but from deep foundations, grand in size, 
Life-structures rose like that for which he sought ; 
And, tho’ lie oft would think this ne’er could rise, 
Anon in visions fair he saw it fill the skies. 

A Life in Song: Daring , liv. 
FRAME, HUMAN 

Ah now, my frame, you are dear to me. 

What else below or above 
Could ever appear 
So deeply dear? 

What else could I wish to have or be? — 

For ah, you have won her love. 

0 new-found bliss of an earthly birth ; 

This frame may be but sod; 

But sod or soul 
She loves the whole 

That I am, nor another could have such worth ; 

I would rather be man than God. 

Idem: Loving , xliv. 

FRANCE 

But thou, our country’s friend, and valor’s own, 

O France, rash champion in all conquests new, 

Who has not bow’d when dazed before thy throne, 
Nor feared on it to find a tyrant too? 

Top-wave, thou art, where flows our civilization; 

Thy white crest shows the wind that sweeps the sea, 

A courtier’s dress or country’s devastation, 

Whate’er our fashions be, they all are set by thee. 

And some are wise ones! Would all homes could 
own 

The courtesies that grace the Frenchman’s pride. 
Alas, our own forms oft repeat alone 

What apes and parrots might, as well, have tried. 
Defects we have, but overdo confession 

Who shroud our own home-life in foreign ways, 
And, short of thought, intent on long expression, 
Curve into devious French each straight-aim’d 
Saxon phrase. 


138 


A POETS CABINET 


Forgive us, France, if fools or fashion-plates 
Have made us rank thee foremost but in arts 
Disguising well a world of worthless traits: 

True worth hast thou within thy heart of hearts. 
And hadst thou only wrought us works of beauty 
Earth’s unattractive forms to guise and glove, 

Still beauty in this world ranks next to duty, 

And those who make life lovely next to those who love. 

But grander arts embodying grander thought 
Amid thine architectural glories throng; 

And, where the painter’s brush so well has wrought, 
Thine orators have well denounced the wrong. 

Let them as well renounce all wrong ambition, 

Lest with some later revolution cursed 
Their genius, like the lightning, fire its mission 

By brilliant strokes that but make dire the gloom 
they burst. Idem : Serving , liv-lvii. 

FRANK 

And yet if love must love the soul, 

What power more lovely can control 
The men we meet, than words and ways 
So frank and open all can gaze 
On thought behind the outward phase! 

While every eye serene and bright, 

Transparent with the inward light, 

Reveals what thrills angelic sight! 

Idem: Doubting , XXIX. 

A time there was I thought mankind 
Had all an inborn right to find 
How truth appeal’d to every mind. 

How noble is the task, I thought, 

When one has wisdom gain’d in aught, 

To show what he has thus been taught! 

And this to do, my every nerve 
I strain’d and pain’d, so all might serve 
For men to harp on. But the strings 
I held to them were scarce the things 
For them to harp on with content. 

Men guess not oft the whole truth meant 
By words that voice another’s thought. 

Idem , xxxi. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


139 


FRANKNESS ( See CONCEALMENT, DECEPTION and 
TRUTH) 

When young, not few had found his ways too old; 

When older, few had found them not too young. 
His friends for his reserve oft thought him cold ; 

His foes thought all he knew was on his tongue. 
Yet ever for a true demean ambitious, 

His greatest virtue proved his greatest fault. 

Oft men, adepts in vice, would deem him vicious. 
Because no guile's discretion made his frankness halt. 

Idem: Serving , v. 

A man who cannot bear abuse 
Would better live a mere recluse, 

Than turn his own soul inside out 
Because, forsooth, men stand in doubt 
Of what he thinks the most about. 

Alas, where foes our souls assail, 

Not all can conquer, stript of mail, 

What spurs the firm may wound the frail. 

Idem: Doubting , xxxii. 

FRANKNESS, ITS INFLUENCE ON OTHERS 
If they're so frank with you, you can be frank with 
them. A little unalloyed truth from the inside of your 
brain transferred to the inside of theirs might work 
like leaven, and do them good. 

.... Why try to force medicine down a throat 
that's always throwing up ! I have as much as I can 
do trying to dodge the output. 

What Money Can't Buy , II. 
Thank God that lips tell not what hate might say. 

Midnight in a City Park. 

If but the truth of love a soul should tell 
What hearts might break, what homes become a 
hell! 

If touched by ardor of one's brightest aims, 

How black his earth might scorch beside the flames ! 

Idem. 

FREEDOM, INDIVIDUAL {see INDEPENDENCE) 

Ah, when shall mortals learn 
That truth is grander than the earthly urn 
To which they would confine it, or conceive 


140 


A POETS CABINET 


That wisest laws in states or churches leave 
Each man to govern rightly his own soul 
And thus, through practice, nurture self-control? 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xlvi. 

Whatever old age may need, needs it the most 
The young who old have grown before their time? — 
Need sick men nurses pale? — or poor men, those 
Whose moods have never stored the rich results 
Mined from a world the world’s heir should explore? — 
Nay, nay, these all would be more ably served 
By spirits free to live their own love’s life. 

Haydn , xli. 

Oh you who prate of freedom, 

In home, in state, in church, 

If any realm could grant your wish, 

It would not end your search. 

The place where most men like to be 
Is where with most they mingle; 

And such a place none ever see 
So long as they keep single; 

Nay, those, in all they care about, 

Who always leave their neighbors out, 

Find life not worth this jingle: — 

Oh, you may call that being free, 

But it does not seem free to me. 

The Little Twin Tramps , v. 

FREEDOM IN STATE AND CHURCH 
Not mountain chains, nor streams that cleave the plains, 
Nor the wide ocean that around them rolls 
Can bound the realm of Freedom’s loyal souls 
Who serve the Spirit that above it reigns. 

Not the mean few who snatch for selfish gains 
Through pathways opening toward the noblest goals 
Can shake Heaven’s children’s faith that Heaven 
controls 

That life the most which Earth the least enchains. 

Expansion . 

Yet oh, how dear thy sons, where’er they stray, 

Hold thee, our own just Land, in memory! 

Where every set and sect may have their say, 

And worth alone insures nobility ; 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


141 

Where thrill the breasts of freedom’s humble mothers, 
Who feel their offspring have but God to serve, 
And in the race they run with common brothers, 

May win whatever crown of life their lives deserve. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lix. 

But trust me, friend, wherever lifting skies 
Impel deep slumbering souls to wake and rise 
And press toward nobler things that then they view, 
The church or nation that there lets them do 
Their best to make their best ideals true, 

Brings forth more worth from every character 
Than all the rites and codes that ever were. 

Idem: Seeking , xliv. 

God’s laws are inward, and they most control 
Those left most free to serve what moves the soul; 
But what earth’s rulers force men to fulfill 
Oft flows from but one headstrong human will. 

Idem. 

All in vain men sigh for freedom, heedless where its 
boons begin; 

Life is one; and souls are never free without till free 
within. 

Men must learn of wiser action; all their aims must 
nobler be, 

Love for all mankind must rule them, ere their laws 
can leave them free. 

Only when the right impels them, will they cease their 
long complaints; 

Only love for every duty moves unconscious of re- 
straints. 

Only when no malice moves them can the fetters 
clank no more ; 

Only love in every heart can open every prison-door. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xi. 

freedom: the fight for 

Crowds and shoutings 
Can never end our strife. 

But sadder scenes and sounds await 
Our loss of wealth and life. 


142 


A POETS CABINET 


The structures fair of freedom 
Men rear beneath the sky, 

Press down on deep foundations, 

Where thousands buried lie. 

Our course we well may ponder: 

Hope’s rainbow in the cloud 
May lure a march beneath its arch 
To flash and bolt and shroud. 

The Lebanon Boys in Boston . 
The course of one born humble as themselves, 

Who yet attained the end of highest aims 
As grand as any land or age e’er sought, 

Because his plans when struggling toward the light 
Emerged where freemen leave to God and heaven 
The right to rule the spirit though on earth. 

A Life in Song : Finale . 

FREE SCHOOLS AND HOMES 
Our schools are schools where poor men’s boys can 
learn to act like gentlemen. 

The Little Twin Tramps , v. 
We love the schools that rear us, 

Their learning free as light, 

And laws, if truth loom near us, 

That let men use their sight ; 

Where each can helm his own soul’s thought, 

When, drawn by Heaven, the Inward Ought 
Points, compass-like, to right. 

America , our Home . 
FREE SPEECH 

And in a land where speech is free as thought 
Whoe’er do wrong, erelong, will find their ruin wrought. 

A Life in Song: Daring , vii. 
FRESH, IN EXPERIENCE 
A little rill just starting from a spring 
Could not be quite so gushing fresh as you are! 

I love you, boy; but when the rill has rubbed 
A little more of soil from both its banks 
’Twill have more substance if not quite 
So much transparency. Dante 1 I., I. 

FRICTION, AS A SOURCE OF LIGHT 
The first man in the world who had no light made 


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143 


it by making friction; and, to-day, when wanting 
more light, most men do the same. At times, the 
friction sets their thoughts aglow. At times, it frays 
them into splinters; but the splinters make choice 
kindling too ; and so the world at large keeps getting 
more light still, and by that light, men walk. 

The Two Paths , iv. 

FRIEND and FRIENDS 
Amid the traits of multitudes 
The Maker speaks through many moods 
Of truths that are not understood 
By those who by themselves do brood. 

And better be, in lone despair, 

Some king's court fool, astride a chair, 

Who dreams he rules a kingdom there, 

With stock-still statues his hussars, 

And scarfs of Knighthood, but the scars 
Deep-whipt across his bleeding back, 

Than be a man whose life must lack 
The love that waits on friendship’s throne. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxvi. 
“What is a friend?” I ask’d. 

“What else,” he said, 

“But, in a world, where all misjudge one so, 

A soul to whom one dares to speak the truth?” 

Haydn , xxvn. 

For all our worth is crown’d alone, 

When friends have made our cause their own. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxvi. 

I, not for future gain, 
For what he may become, would prize my friend; 

I prize the thing he is ; nor wish him changed. 

I would not dare disturb for aught besides 
The poise of traits composing sympathy, 

Which, as they are, so balance my desires. 

Ah, did I chiefly prize the profit gain’d 
Or promised me, where were my present joy? — 
Nay, nay, that love I, which I find possess’d. 

Haydn , xxi. 

But love in heaven is always just; 

And so I think I would not trust, 


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But fear a friend, by day or night, 

Whose love contain’d no love of right. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxvn. 
Why, we were like two arms that limb one frame, 
Two hands that ply one work, two eyes that trace 
One onward path, two ears that heed the same 
Inciting cry, two steeds that lead the race 
Yoked to one car, twin rivals for one aim, — 

To think my friend base, I myself were base. 

The Lost Friend. 
The same boat floats you both. 
You pull together. Friends are worth the having 
Who best can serve themselves when serving us. 

Cecil the Seer, I. 

A friend grows grain and chaff. Sift out the first 
And cultivate it well, some gain may come — 

Some profit from your friendship. “But,” said I, 

“If you should change yourself who change your 
friend, 

Or change but his relations to yourself, 

Or, some way, make a new, strange man of him?” 

Haydn , xx. 

Our friends, at times, are parasites, 

Who drain our strength, to crawl to heights 
On which they thrive on others’ rights. 

At times, not made for light, they spring, 

As fits an upstart underling, 

Beneath the shade our branches bring. 

In either case, it scarce would suit 
Their aims, to bear the best of fruit. 

The usual yield that fills the stalk 
Is promissory buds of talk, 

Or gossip-tales — which spring around, 

If low-lived friends gain slightest ground, 

Like toadstools where decay is found. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxx. 
FRIENDS, PARTING OF 

And so these friends of mine, so prized of old, 

And I had parted, — not as friends would part, 
With love’s high zenith fever’d like the skies 
Where eve has rent from them a fervid sun, 


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Then cool’d and calm’d in starlight sprinkled thick 
Until the sun come back. We crack’d apart, 

Like icebergs drifting southward, join’d no more, 
And sunn’d alone the while they melt away. 

Ideals Made Real , xli. 
FRIENDS AND FOES 

Nay, light, 

It trails the shadow. It is those with friends 
Are sure of foes ; and only those with neither 
Are sure of neither. Columbus , 11., 1. 

FRIENDS, AND LOSS 

It is worth some loss 
To learn we own some friends. 

Cecil the Seer , III., 1. 
FRIENDS, FOOLISH 

The pull that lifts one by a rotting rope 
Is far less dangerous than the help that comes 
From foolish friends. Dante t 11., 1. 

friends’ friends 

I never hope my friends’ friends to be my friends. 
Those we meet all look at us from different points of 
view. Some like our fronts, and some our sides, and 
some our backs. Some think our eyes are heavenly; 
and some our touch ; and some — the most of women — 
can never look beyond the clothes we wear. 

The Two Paths , 11. 

FRIENDSHIP 

It seem’d a rare and royal friendship, ours, 

The very sovereignty of sympathy; 

Begun so early too — mere lads we were — 

And now I never look back there again 
But, swept like shading from a hero’s face 
In pictures, — those of Rembrandt, — all the school 
Appear in hues of dim uncertainty 
Surrounding Elbert, shining in relief. 

Ideals Made Real , 1. 

’Tis well to sow the seeds of friendship when the 
sun is shining on your summer, then, when your 
fall comes, they bear fruit. 

The Little Twin Tramps , v. 


10 


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Friendship’s light 

Reflects but what is kindled in ourselves. 
Extinguish it within, and soon without 
We find our world in darkness. 

Columbus , v., 1. 

FRIENDS, OLD 

When people have been brought up together, they 
are like two trees that grow near each other in the 
same forest. You can hardly distinguish the branches 
and leaves of the one from those of its neighbor. All 
seem to belong together. So with the thoughts, feelings, 
actions of these old friends. They can sympathize and 
help one another, as is impossible for those who have 
hitherto been strangers. Where Society Leads , 111. 

FRIEND TO ONESELF 

No best friend ever seems a friend to one not 
friendly to himself. The Little Twin Tramps , 1. 

FRIGHT AND FUN 

It struck us all, I think, as waves do when they 
splash at parties rowing in a yawl, and seem about to 
swamp them; but, when passed, seem memories to 
laugh at. The Two Paths , 11. 

FRUITAGE 

. . . . Who knows the fruitage of the seed he plants? — 
Like seed, like fruit. 

.... The seed was very small. 

.... The fruitage large? — Yet both were one in kind. 

The Aztec God , 111. 

FRUIT OF LOVE 

You remind me of the fruit we watch in summer, 
growing rosier the longer we delay in plucking it ! 

The Two Paths , 1. 

FUGITIVE, A 

Amid the darkness of the night, 

Two star-like eyes, a gown-cloud white, 

And, just above, like phantom rays, 

Gray, bony fingers met my gaze. 

What skeleton had sought my side? — 

“ In God’s name who are you?” I cried; 

And, wind-like came a ghostly hiss, 

“In God’s name, let me tell you this. 


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“Someone did something wrong, — a man. 

Some thought his color dark. He ran. 

We heard a tread, a hoot, a song. 

What of it? — We had done no wrong! 

“We never dreamed of their attack, 

For we, we were not very black; 

And should we flee, someone might say 
That we were guilty — better stay!” 

After the Lynching. 

FUN, RISKY 

In balancing between the wise and unwise, fun, at 
times, is risky. If by a jot the joker lose his wit, he 
plunges into folly. Tuition for her Intuition , in. 

FUNDAMENTALS VS. ORNAMENTALS 

No man can put up a building without laying 
foundations. My work is in the mud, you think; but 
wait a few years. I am useful now. By-and-by, I shall 
be ornamental. The Snob and the Sewing Girl , 1. 

FUSSY, THE 

In the efforts of art as of all human action, it is 
important to remember that the fussy is never con- 
sistent with the dignified. 

Painting , Sculp., and Arch, as Rep. Arts , xix. 

GAMBLERS (see MONEY AS A TOY) 

Beguiled to fling away 
The hard-earned token-coin of pay, 
Dishonoring, in the craze of play, 

The law that blesses work. 

The Society Leader . 

GAMBLING, WHEN SEDUCED INTO 

.... I have charge of money. I might have very 
little left to have charge of, if it were thought that I am 
in the habit of playing with what I have. 

.... Nobody need find it out. 

.... I shall see that nobody does find it out. The 
first thing that I do to-morrow will be to tell those for 
whom I work exactly what I have done to-night, and 
let them, for themselves, judge of the circumstances. 

.... And why should you do that? 

.... So as not to seem a sneak, in case they learn 
of it from others. Where Society Leads , 11. 


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GAMBLING, TEMPTING ONE INTO 

.... I know quite a number of gentlemen who 
gamble; but not one of them that wouldn’t warn off a 
young fellow who wanted to play at the risk of losing 
his business situation. 

.... What do men do at their clubs? 

.... At most of them of which I know they draw 
up by-laws forbidding gambling. 

.... I have played for money myself at the Wood- 
side Club. 

.... Yes; but it has lady-members. It wouldn’t 
do to have by-laws that would interfere with their 
pleasure. 

.... I thought that you were a member of the 
Players’ Club? 

.... I am! but do you think that the word 
player means the same as gambler? A player 
never can be the latter so long as he is inside that 
club house. 

.... You mean to tell me that actors don’t 
gamble? 

.... Oh, no; only that the majority of this par- 
ticular set of actors have a sense of responsibility that 
prevents their allowing conditions that might induce 
others to gamble. 

.... What do they do on Sundays, when you are 
not there? 

.... Oh, on that day, in that club, they are 
forbidden to play any games at all. 

.... Do you suppose that I am taking what you 
say for truth? The idea! — Nothing to do on the only 
day they have for recreation! 

.... Plenty to do, my dear. The houses of their 
lady-friends on Fifth and Massachusetts Avenues are 
wide open; and they are not only welcomed there, 
they are allured to go to the devil there just as fast 
as they choose. Idem . 

GARB 

Bless’d with beauty’s dower, 
Although her garb was plainer than her neighbors’, 

Her face made this unmark’d as leaves beside a 
flower. A Life in Song: Serving , xii. 


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GENERAL EFFECTS NOT ACCUMULATIONS OF SPECIFIC 

ones {see parts and suggestions) 

.... The little things together make the greater. 
.... No; hardly that. You never judge one’s face 
by all its features, but by the foremost ones ; and not a 
park by all its blades and bushes ; but by a few things — 
hills or trees in sunshine that cast the rest in shade. 
The gods may find all life a sieve, and strain all wisdom 
through it ; but human beings only get the drops that 
filter through an opening, here and there. 

Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 

GENERALSHIP 

Hail to the ring of the voice that taught 
Drumming and roaring the rhythm of thought. 

Columbus , iv., 2. 

GENEROSITY WITH THE UNGENEROUS 
You give to one who never gives to others, 

He first will recognize you as a dupe, 

And then prepare to treat you as a prey. Dante , 1 . , 2 . 

GENIUS 

A mind like his 

Glows like a spark upon a wintry hearth, — 

The brightest promise that the times afford. 

Dante , II., I. 

Oft in earth’s bigot-brotherhood 
The fools alone are understood, 

And stupid souls alone seem good. 

But, while the rest are dozing late, 

The genius, quick to sight his fate, 

Will wake and wish, and work, and wait, 

And fix his aim on looming schemes, 

Apart from those that earth esteems, 

Else would he mind but common themes. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xvih. 
The train of genius marshals everywhere 
Distrust before success, and envy after. 

Columbus , iv., 1. 

GENTLE 

A steed we drive, a stream that floods its banks, 

Has not less force because its gait is gentle. 

Dante , 1., 1. 


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150 


GENTLEMAN 

A gentleman is one 
Who never does the unexpected. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

GENTLEMANLY LOVE 

.... Why, you might fall in love with her-^ 
compromise her — injure her reputation. 

.... I think I am too much of a gentleman to 
injure a woman with whom I fell in love. 

.... Oh, I didn’t mean that exactly. Of course, 
that would be absurd. I meant that she might fall in 
love with you. 

.... Well, if that should happen, I am too much of 
a gentleman, I hope, to have much to do with a woman 
with whom I failed to fall in love in return. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl, 11. 

GENTLEMAN THIEF 

Rather than not be thought a gentleman, you pre- 
ferred to be a thief. It’s the way with a large number 
of people in this city. Idem, iv. 

GENTLEMAN VS. AMERICAN 

.... No; he’s very straight-laced. 

.... And the Count is not? 

.... Oh, he’s a perfect gentleman. 

.... And Bernard is not? 

.... Why, not in the same way. You know 
Bernard is only an American. The Count belongs to 
one of the oldest families in Europe. All of them have 
been gentlemen for generations. 

.... Who told you that? 

.... Why — mother — everybody knows it. 

.... I didn’t know it. 

.... But you — you are an American, and 

.... So are you Winifred; and so is your 
mother. 

.... But you can read about the Count’s family 
in books. 

.... Every family contains some black sheep. 
How do you know that he’s not one? 

Where Society Leads, 11. 


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IS* 


GENTLEMEN 

No man can tell which curse a country most; — 

Its gentlemen who feel above all work; 

Or workmen so far down they feel beneath 
All obligation to be gentlemen. 

As for the first, heaven grant they soon find out 
That this new world is not a place for them. 

As for the second, if we plan no way 
To keep them on the other side the sea, 

Farewell to all the good we hope for here. 

Columbus , v., 1. 

GENTLEMEN VS. LADIES 

While learning to be gentlemen, some girls forget 
how to be ladies. Tuition for her Intuition , 1. 

GENTLENESS 

Perchance we are wiser for deeds 
That learn from feelings as much as from creeds, 
When taught thro’ the injuring zeal of our race 
That gentleness shows a growth in grace. 

Love and Life , xxxvm. 
Remember Him, that once men sacrificed, 

But now rules over souls in every land. 

The world had long His gentle spirit prized, 

Ere it had come to heed His each command. 
Remember Moses: — with his mission grand, 

His meekness was the trait his race knew best ; 

Nor can our restless world e’er understand 
How one can lead it toward a promised rest 
Whose own soul has not yet this promis’d boon 
possess’d. A Life in Song: Daring , lxx. 

A few short leagues, and, calm and sluggish grown, 

The fickle brook has left the mountain steep ; 

And now, no more in boisterous torrents thrown, 

Through fertile fields, flows noiseless, broad, and 
deep, 

Alive with sails and lined with those who reap. 

So may our lives, altho’ no more allied 

To narrow rock-bound brooks that wildly leap, 

Send forth an influence no less strong and wide, 
Because a gentler motion moves its growing tide. 

Idem , xiii. 


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GENTLENESS, THE BASIS OF INFLUENCE 
The wild beast may roar. It is the gentle horse 
and the faithful dog that make men treat the animals 
like friends. The goose may hiss. It is the unobtru- 
sive dove that draws the children to the barnyard, and 
makes them generous with their grain. 

Suggestions for the Spiritual Life, ix. 

GERMANY 

Our friend now found a land, where, ere their weaning, 
The children clap their hands to classic airs, 

And gray-hair’d sires, on canes or crutches leaning, 
Hear no profounder truths than those which music 
bears. 

There flows a genial force from things we see, 

Which blends with subtlest currents of the mind, 
And though it leaves each soul’s expression free, 

It forms the motive power that moves mankind. 

It pleads in music, argues in suggestions ; 

And bursts to passion in philosophy; 

In lieu of wielding arms, it merely questions; 

And in the world it thrives the most in Germany. 
How blest her sons whose needs appear supplied, 
When but the spirit’s wants their lives possess; 
And, with its joyous freedom satisfied, 

Scarce care for what the world would call success! 
Whoe’er may seek for truth to make inventions 

That strain all lore through lucre’s well-filled sieve, 
Their souls, content with having high intentions, 
Rejoice in life because it seems a joy to live, — 

A joy to be a boy with endless hope, 

A joy to be a man, mature and strong, 

By day augmenting labor’s widening scope, 

By night at rest with “wife and wine and song.” 
Let others’ thirst at once drain pleasure’s glasses, 

The German’s lip first blows from his the foam, 
And, ere to sip a second glass he passes, 

The others doze in stupor, or reel raving home. 

Yet who could not wish here for less that bars 
The outward action from the inward thought; 

And more humanity, and less hussars, 

To further on the progress all have sought? 


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Who could not wish for faith and aspiration 

More worldly scope? — for there were times, one 
reads, 

When, not content with theories, the nation 

Led all mankind to truth not more in dreams than 
deeds. A Life in Song: Serving , xlv-xlix. 

GETTING AROUND VS. FIGHTING A MAN 
In paths where men and women go opposite ways 
and meet, I have seldom known of a woman who 
could not get around a man; but she seldom could 
get around a man she began by fighting. 

The Ranch Girl f iv. 

GILDING 

Wherever people prize things mainly for the gilding 
you may be sure that whatever is under it would look 
mighty cheap if it were not covered up. 

What Money Can't Buy , hi. 

GIRLHOOD, THE LOVE OF 

Ere I knew of it, 

In budding girlhood even, he had pluck’d 
My blushing love, and wore it on his heart; 

And all my life took root where sprang his own. 

Haydn , 11. 

GIRLS, THAT USE WHISKEY 
Been drinking, eh ? Are fragrant as a living whiskey 
bottle! Young girls whose kisses bring a breath like 
that we know are reeking ripe for anything. 

The Two Paths , hi. 

GLEN, A 

When first I followed up thy modest brook, 

And left the northwest road, and came on thee, 

How grand thy wood-crowned rocks appeared to be 
Whose high-arched foliage heaven’s dim light forsook! 
But when, years later, I came back to look 
On what so awed, I stood amazed to see 
How small and shrunk, when shorn of every tree, 
Were all that I for lofty cliffs mistook. 

Then, in my college-town, I joined, once more, 

The mates I so had honored in my youth. 

Alas, in some, no mystery seemed to lurk 
Where heights of promise had so loomed of yore! 


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Has life no sphere in which one finds, forsooth, 

No wrong to nature wrought by man’s mean work? 

Ford's Glen , Williamstown. 

GLORY 

Brave souls who in dark times had turn’d them where 
The light of coming good on earth should burst ; 

Nor knew ’t would gild themselves with all its glory 
first. A Life in Song: Daring , vm. 

GLORY, DERIVED 

Thus lived I, triumph’d over; as are clouds 
Whereon the sun sits throned; all bright are they, 
And bright beneath them is the sunset sea. 

In splendid serfdom to its love, my soul, 

That shone with kindling glory, thence beheld 
A kindling glory shine from all about. 

Ideals Made Real , xliv. 

GLORY, HUMAN 

Who, think you, live in story 
That live for self alone? 

Who care to spread his glory 
That cares not for their own? 

In every strife 

That stirs the pulse to nobler life, 

The man that has the thrilling heart, 

He plays the thrilling part. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 

GOALS OF LIFE 

Of what do we talk? — Of the goals of life, 

The freedom and peace to be, 

When the good shall always gain their strife 
With truth as their only plea. 

We talk of the world as it shall be, when 
Men heed the spirit’s call; 

And the untold worth to bless them then, 

When heaven shall rule them all. 

We talk of the world as it is, that strives 
With forms to hide the heart. 

Were it made by us, forsooth, no lives, 

When at one, would dwell apart. 

A Life in Song: Loving , XL. 


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GOD 

Thither thus may all be drawn, and find, at last, that 
perfect Love, 

Power, Truth, Wisdom, Justice, Beauty, throned 
eternally above; 

Find the Mind that moves creation, Maker, Father, 
Saviour, Lord. 

Source and Sum and Destination, Life with which all 
lives accord. Idem: Watching, xxxiv. 

The stars that make 
High aims awake 
Are but what Thine eye seest. 

The stroke and stress 
That earn success 
Are but what Thou decreest. 

In all the past 
Whose blessings last, 

Thy presence fills the story; 

And all the gleams 
That gild our dreams 
Obtain from Thee their glory. 

Columbus , hi ., 2. 

GOD IN MAN 
Upon the man we call; 

But bright behind the gaze we greet, 

There gleams a glory yet to meet 
Our souls beholding past the gloom 
Of toil and trouble, tear and tomb, 

The god beyond it all. 

The Aztec God , 111. 

GOD, LOVE-MADE 

Why should a soul with faith sublime as yours 
Fear aught? — Your love alone, if nothing else, 
Could here create of me the god you think me. 

Idem , v. 

GOD, MAN-MADE 

We never have a God we understand 
Until we learn to judge Him by ourselves. 

Cecil the Seer, 11., 2. 

They say they make me god. 

No, no; they make me devil!— Would they could! 


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What happy hours in hell would heat the hate 
My heart could hurl at what they call divine! 

The Aztec God , iv., i. 
.... How does he seem to take it? 

.... Just like a god when made by man; or, if 
You like not that, a man when made by a god. — 
Is there much difference between the two? 

Idem. 


GOD, SON OF 

Yes, God. 

What voice, or face, or form, or robe, or crown, 

Or throne attests His Presence? Who can trust 
And serve mere outward, sensuous things like these, 
And not be all through life — ay, out of it 
And even after death — a slave to sense, 

No brother of the Christ, no son of God? 

Columbus , v., 2. 

GODS, THE 

Oh, ye that dwell less in the earth and sky 
Than in the meditations of the mind. 

The Aztec God , iv., 2. 
But in the thrills that fill the hush 
When naught without is passing by, 

The gods are always nigh. Idem , 11. 

But in the looks that on us gaze 
From out the love-lit human eye 

The gods are always nigh. Idem. 


GODWARD 

Would men look'd Godward more! *T would save 
their souls 

From many a hell that their own hands have made. 

Haydn , xli. 

gold 

Why gold? — The best way to hypnotize men is 
through twirling a metal that glitters. 

The Ranch Girl , 11. 


GOLD VS. SPIRITUAL RICHES 

With men like these, preparing 
To root their very spirits out from earth, 

That they may thus transplant them where the world 
Will reap a richer fruitage, what were Spain, 


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Were she to grudge a void from which were scraped 
A paltry heap of gold ! All were too mean 
To pedestal aright the lasting fame 
That would be hers, did they attain their end. 

Columbus , 11., 3. 

GOLDEN RULE 

We love the life that bears us 
Toward all that seers can see, 

And, led by hope, prepares us 
The whole world’s hope to be, 

When, in the day that war shall cease, 

Our Golden Rule shall keep the peace, 

And all mankind be free. 

America , our Home. 

GOOD, ACCOMPLISHED IN DIFFERENT WAYS (see CHRIST) 
However or wherever plied, I said, 

Real power for good owns good enough to claim 
Some courtesy from Christian charity. 

If I but fling a stone in yonder pond, 

Wherever it may fall, it stirs the whole. 

So if I throw out thought for mind or heart, 
Through art or through religion, each may move 
The whole man thus, and move him for his good. 

Ideals Made Real, xlvii. 
The earth is not a heaven, nor man a saint; 

But truths there are to which our faith may cling, 
And trace with joy some good in every thing. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xiv. 
And so, I think, although the wilderness, 

At times, a John in camel’s hair may need, 

There open too, in ways of life less wild, 

More ways, where love may plead in guise more soft. 
In short, as long as one may choose his course, 

’T is best we do what each can do the best. 

Ideals Made Real , xlvii. 
GOOD DEEDS, LEADING TO GOOD LIFE 
It’s always seemed to me that there’s enough in 
people, if you can only get them to doing good once — 
get them interested in it — to cause most of them to 
come out in the end all right. 

Modern Fishers of Men, iv. 


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GOOD, DONE BY SELF 

Every soul 

Is proudest of the good itself has fathered. 

Cecil the Seer , ill., I. 

GOOD, THE, FIND GOOD IN OTHERS 

The best effect of being good oneself is finding 
good in others. Every mind works like a magnet 
— draws from all about it the thoughts and moods 
that seem most like its own. 

On Detective Duty , i. 

GOODNESS 

We best can judge of some things by their source, — 
Of days by daylight, and of good by goodness. 
Heaven sends the one, and only heavenly traits 
Can bring the other. Dante , n., I. 

GOSSIP 

Not a chum she knew, 

For all her hints of news that she might tell, 

Who found out all folks did, and not one doing well. 

A Life in Song: Daring , Li. 
GOSSIPS 

These gossips all are scavengers 
Of nobler people’s characters, 

And how can one of taste or sense 
Be made, and yet take no offence, 

The cess-pools of their confidence? 

Idem , Doubting , xxx. 
Mean slanderers of characters, 

These friends that stick to us like burrs, 

Throng every home, and boast an ear 
Well hugg’d against one’s heart, to hear 
Each secret throb of hope or fear. 

Why tell they what they ne’er have known? 

And force one, since he cannot own, 

To leave their untrue love alone? Idem , xxxi. 

GOVERNMENT, FORCE THE FUNCTION OF 
.... To your conception then the function of 
the government is force that keeps down outward 
wrong? 

.... Precisely, yes. 

.... And by police and soldiers, I suppose? 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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.... Of course. 

.... Then where do women come in? 

.... You? — a man? — and asking that? — They 
come in where there is a need of love and sympathy; 
or any public good that flows from these. More work 
in them than women have time for now! 

.... But how about their rights? 

.... I think the rights of all humanity are more 
important. Tuition for her Intuition, 1. 

GOWN, A WOMAN’S 

.... The surest place to hide things from a man 
is in a woman’s gown. He doesn’t know or understand 
it, and he dare not search it. 

.... Oh, no, afraid of being pricked with pins. 

The Two Paths , 11. 

I had almost been content to have lost 
My soul itself, nor begrudg’d the cost, 

Had it brought me as near to her, as were 
The soulless things that surrounded her. 

My moods all seem to fit her own, 

And without her seem so void, so lone, 

I have learn’d to envy her senseless gown 
That never knows it is bless’d, 

Yet all day long moves up and down 

With the laughing or sighing that heaves her breast, 

And, clasping tight in its folds embraced 

The neck so white, and the tender waist, 

Keeps clinging close to the frame so sweet, 

And fluttering in and out to meet 
The dear, dear touch of the dainty feet. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xn. 
GRACE 

He lived, with restless eyes and merry voice 

And yielding ways, whose yielding gave them grace. 

Idem: Daring , lvi. 
Her name was Grace, and gracious was her mien; 
And graces everywhere attended her 
Through jars and joys of journeys afterward. 

Ideals Made Real , xlv. 

GRATITUDE 

Gratitude is a spring whose flow is measured, not by 


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that which falls upon it from without, but by that 
which is already stored in the depths within. 

The Function of Technique. 

GREAT AND SMALL MEN SIMILARLY CONDITIONED 

You may think that you are a great man, and that 
I am a very small one. But if one can’t jump on 
another like an elephant, he can like a flea, and, 
where the flea goes, there, in this case, at least, will 
go the flesh he feeds on. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl , iv. 

GREED FOR GOLD 

Oh, what a worm 

Is greed for gold! Did ever human fruitage 
Turn into rot but this greed gnawed the core? — 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

GRIEF 

You think that veins too heavy weighed with grief 
May empty then through talk as well as tears. 

Dante, n., I. 

GRIEF, ALTERNATION IN EXPERIENCE OF 

At times my soul appears a stormy sea, 

All rage below and rain above; at times 
It seems the tears I shed have drained me dry, 
And left a void too deep for faith in God 
Or man to fill. Idem , n., 2. 

GROUPED, MANKIND ARE 

.... Do you know, you look so much like an old 
friend I used to have. Oh, yes, and we were intimate, 
oh, very! I sometimes think that men — like animals, 

say, foxes, dogs, and cats 

.... And jackasses? 

.... Ha! ha! — are grouped; and half the joy of 
life depends on finding which group is one’s own. 

The Two Paths , 111. 

GROVE BY MOONLIGHT 

Thence wandering forth one still clear night I 
found 

Beneath the moon that rose up, large and round, 
Through vistas opening like some temple’s aisles, 
Great trees that arched the moveless air for miles. 
Their spreading boughs, like shadowy rafters, lined 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 161 

A star-filled dome, and oft, where foliage twined 
In leafy fretwork round each trailing limb, 

Flash’d bright with dew. Beneath them, fair though 
dim, 

About the trees’ wide trunks, in half seen bowers, 
And pushing up through paths I trod, were flowers. 

I seem’d their nature’s lord ; for, when my feet 
Would crush them as I pass’d, they grew more sweet. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , n. 
With gratitude for each toy-touch of air 
At play on my knit brow, I rested there. 

But while I rested, lo, a stranger’s form 

Push’d through the white bars of the moonlight warm. 

Idem , v. 

GROW 

It strikes me, friend, that all things truthful grow. 
E’en love outgrows the fashion of its youth: — 

The world whirls on apace; and different hues 
Turn toward the noonday-sun. No dawn returns. 
What form or color robes the infinite? — 

Ideals Made Real , lv. 

GROWLING 

Dogs are not the only brutes that growl when waked. 

Tuition for her Intuition, I. 

GUARDIAN SPIRIT, THE 

You and I have loved supremely, — yet 
Our love has loved another. — Could this be 
Of that form which we walked with in our dreams? 
.... Why 

.... Did you ever think that all our dreams 

Are in ourselves; and this form too may be there? 
They say that human brains, ay, all our frames 
Are doubled. — If so, why? — For use? — then whose? 
Who is it twins existence with us here? 

Can it be our own real, live, better self 
Which under consciousness we vaguely feel 
Dreams while we wake and wakes the while we 
dream, 

Recalls what we forget, incites and is 
Less form than spirit, but, because a spirit, 

Heaven’s representative, our guardian, guide, 


ii 


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And all that tells of God? You know all praise 
The men dependent only on themselves. 

Yet why? — Is it so noble to be free 

From love, or wish for love? Or own these men 

A subtle consciousness of nobler love 

Which, in the spirit-life, is all in all? 

Know they that earthly forms which seem divine 
But image that within which is divine? 

Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 

GUESSES 

Men’s guesses are like their gifts. I have found 
they are often bait on a hook and line thrown out 
to draw inward toward themselves. 

The Ranch Girl, in. 

GUIDING BY FOLLOWING 

I have learned that most of those that are obscure 
guide others best when, like a rudder, they are follow- 
ing them. The Two Paths , in. 

GUILT 

Allow’d to grow, 

The germs of guilt, like those of disease, 

Prove deadly because they seem so small. 

Love and Life, xvii. 

GUILT, REVEALED BY GOOD TALK 

The one best proof that men are guilty, friend, comes 
when they talk as if they were too good. 

The Two Paths, in. 

HALF-HEARTED 

No weak, half-hearted love can be 
The noblest love, or the love for me. 

The power supreme on the spirit’s throne 
If it reign at all, must reign alone. 

What fills my soul with its claims divine, 

Like God whose image it forms in mine, 

Can never clasp to a full-thrill’d heart 
A love that can only love in part. 

The pulsing heat of my life’s desire 
Is the glowing light of a growing fire, 

Whose flames in the form on which they fall 
Must all be quench’d, or burn it all. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxvii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


163 


HAND 

If only a moment I could but stand 
And hold in my own her soft warm hand, 

And under her rustling robe could hear 
The breath that proved that her soul was near, 

I never could ever have doubts again 
That God can live in the frames of men. 

Idem , xiii. 

HAND-CUFFED 

A single bracelet is enough, men think, 

To show a common gratitude. But we, 

Why, we have two ! They think their debt 
To us a doubled one! How it will thrill 
Ambition in the future sons of Spain 
To learn what badges of true servitude 
Await the souls that serve her best. We, we, 

Who made of Spain the Empress of the West, 
Have weightier honors waiting us, — to be 
The slaves that, crushed to earth, will pedestal 
The towering contrast of her sovereignty. 

Columbus , v., 1. 

harmony {see music) 

This chant as rare in harmony 

As if all the souls that sang, had melted into melody. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , XL. 

More sweet than heavenly harps are hearts, 
When love her low throb in them starts; 

More sweet than sweetest songs, when sung, 

Are harmonies of deed and tongue 
Where two together think as one. 

Alas, and what have my moods done 
To part me so from all my brothers? — 

Yet how can I accord with others, 

When all the strings I play, though nerves 
That every feeblest feeling serves 
To fill with thrills, oft bear a strain 
Of stretching fibres wrench’d with pain 
That wellnigh snaps them all in twain, 

Ere fitly strung to sound aright 
Some highest pitch of scorn or spite? 

Idem, Doubting , v. 


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HARMONY, UNIVERSAL 

As in the older advent, so to-day, 

Would I believe in power behind sweet song 
To hold the universe in harmony, 

Expelling evil and impelling good 
Through all the limits of created life, — 

A spirit's power! — What though we mortals here 
With eyes material cannot see the hosts 
That issue forth in forms that while they move 
Awake around us echoes everywhere! 

We spring to spy them, but we only hear 
Their rustle in the trees by which they pass; 

Or where, with dash of water o’er the rocks, 

They leave the sea or linger in the rill. 

At times they rest a moment on the earth, 

When twilight hides them, sighing gently then, 
And lull to dreams, with tones in sympathy, 

The lowly insect and the lowing herd. 

At times, amid the winds that rise at morn, 

They sweep across the land and startle sleep 
From nervous birds that twitter in their track ; 
And, now and then, in clouds that close the sky, 
They bound adown the rift the lightning cleaves 
Till sunlight overhead pours through again. 

A spirit’s power has music; and must rule 
Unrivall’d still as far as ear can heed, 

Or reason hark behind it. All the chords 
Of all things true are tuned by hands divine, 

And thrill to feel the touch ! — 

But sounds may rise 
In souls untuned, like harp-strings when they snap, 
Or, though more soft than dreamland breezes are, 
May fright like forests when the dark leaves blow 
About the solitary murderer — 

And sweetest airs to sweetest moods may bring 
But foretastes vague of harmonies on high. 

The school-girl hears her comrade’s ringing laugh,— 
’T is but the key-note trill’d before the tune. 

The maiden heeds her lover’s mellow plea, — 

’T is but the gamut rill’d ere surge the chords. 

The dame is moved by tones that cheer her home, — 
And they perchance prelude the theme of heaven. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


165 


For even blows of toil and battle-guns 
May be the drum-rolls of the martial strains 
That rise to greet the glory yet to come. 

Ay, wait we long enough, we all may hear 
In all things music ; far above, at last, 

May hear the treble thrilling down from heaven, 
And e’en from hell no discord in the jar 
That only thunders back a trembling bass. 

Ideals Made Real , xxxvm. 

HARVESTING 

Every harvesting before thee 
Shows the vintage is but rain 
Turn’d to wine the grapes obtain 
From the floods that fill the plain. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xli. 

HAUGHTY LOOKS 

.... Seen him, eh? — How then does he look? 
.... Look? — with his eyes — would better ask how 
he doesn’t look — at limbs like us ! — has held his head 
up high so long it has forgotten where it came from. 

The Little Twin Tramps , v. 

HAY CART VS. CHARIOT 

.... I suppose if you were offered, to-morrow, the- 
choice between a chariot and a hay cart, you would 
take the hay cart. 

.... It would depend entirely upon who was in it.. 

Where Society Leads , 11. 

HEADS VS. HEARTS RULING ACTION {see REASON) 
Thank God, we all have heads above our hearts; 
And, if we let them reason with us well, 

They rule us for our best. 

Ideals Made Real , lxiv. 

HEADSTRONG 

The rose that with the fondest care we tend, 

May grace a bush whose briers but cause distress, 
And those on whom we most of love expend 
Give sorrow in return for our caress; 

Yet need we not despair of their success; 

For oft, where others would move on no more, 

Those who in youth these headstrong wills possess, 


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Their way so push that every check, in store 
To stop the weak, becomes for them an opening door. 

A Life in Song: Daring , I v. 

HEALTH 

If those blooming looks 
Hid wormy fruit like that, I ne’er would trust 
Sound health again ! Haydn , xxxix. 

HEART, DEAR 

That dear, dear heart, so eager-sped by love, 

Whose each pulsation, like a paddle’s beat 
Seemed furthering some canoe’s o’erladen prow 
Where it should rest and empty at my feet ; — 

That dear, dear heart, so pliant to my wish 
That, at my lightest breath, the brightening smiles 
Would open round his lips in hues as fair 
As rosebuds parted by the breeze of May; 

That dear, dear heart, the germ of all he was — 

The sweetest outgrowth of the sweetest life 
This earth has ever molded into form; 

To think that even now a heart like that, 

Its nerve-roots quivering in their agony, 

Is being torn out from the bleeding breast 
As if some foulest weed that could pollute 
A soil that, just to hold it — that alone — 

Is more than sacred ! Oh, how can the heavens 
Be so unjust? Far better not to think 
Than think but of that fearful, bleeding vision. 
Would, would that I could veil it out — but no! 

The Aztec God , v. 
HEART, woman’s 

You think 

A woman’s heart, if tested through long years, 

With burdening love would break? You think it 
kinder 

To break it at the start? Columbus , i., 2. 

HEATED BRAIN, NOT INFLUENCED BY WORDS 

Throwing words at a heated brain is like sprinkling 
water on a red hot stove. It never goes below the 
surface; and whatever you get back is a combination 
of hiss and shot, and if it hits you, it burns. You must 
wait till he cools off. What Money Can't Buy , hi. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


167 


heaven ( see immortality and love) 

There, where the sun burns all the view, 

What sounds there in the boundless blue? 

Faith — is it more than a meek despair? 

Truth — than one’s own note echoed in air? 

Hope — than his dawn’s bright dew? 

O hush’d Heaven, but what would I give, 

How would I love, and how would I live, 

To know the soul’s tale to be true! 

What Would I Give. 

Why should we mourn for life’s dry leafless vine, 
Who seek heaven’s vintage, and have saved the wine? 

A Life in Song: Loving , lii. 
Heaven so very bright must be! — 
For even here the past is bright ; and there, 

Up there, we faith shall have, such perfect faith, 
That none can longer fear the future. 

Haydn , vii. 

Let love light all our pathway, till our days 
Grow dark with shades of life’s departing rays; 
But O how brightly then shall heaven, at last, 
Glow like a sunset o’er a loving past! 

A Life in Song: Loving, lii. 
HEAVEN, BEYOND THE INFLUENCE OF HELL 

Heard in heaven, 

Storms blowing from the mouth of hell make music. 

Cecil the Seer, 11., 2. 

HEAVEN, NEAR HELL 

.... You are — 

.... A virgin, yes, but were I the 

.... Do not say that — 

.... I could imagine times 

When one I know would seem divine. 

. . . . Wait, wait! — 

How near together heaven and hell may be ! 

. ... Yes; only earth and earthly thinking make 
It possible for sense to deem them two. 

Throne God in hell, all heaven would burst the gates 
And dream of blessed rest, though every foot 
Were sea’d upon a prostrate seething devil. 

Columbus, 11., 1. 


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HEAVEN, THE WORLD AND HELL 
There is heaven; and all the world, 

A world that will the more pollute my soul, 

The more I try to cross it, lies between 
Myself and it, and keeps me here in hell. 

The Aztec God , ill. 

HEELS, CULTIVATION OF 

.... Part of everybody's understanding is in his 
heels. 

.... And those that cultivate their heels alone are 
in danger of using them, by and by, mainly in trampling 
other people down. What Money Can't Buy, I. 
HELL 

.... Why, then, here’s to hell! 

.... Not here yet — do you mean it, eh? — is not 
a pleasant place for one to go to. 

.... Why not? It is the sort of place you like 
when here, not so? 

.... You are a great logician. 

On Detective Duty, n. 

HELL AND HEAVEN 

In spirit those work most for truth, who most 
Are true; for all are led, yet all are leaders. 

Thus does the line of being bridge the gulf 
Between the world of worm and fire — the hell 
As well as home of all not saved from matter — 
And that eternal rest where souls, made free 
From longer craving a material frame 
Through which to signal their vain selfhood, lose 
Their lower life to find a higher life, 

Where now their spirits are at one with His 
Whose love creates but that it may bestow ; 

And, even as the Christ is in the Father, 

So, too, become joint heirs with Him of all things. 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2 . 

HELLISH 

False and hellish moods 
Create a false and hellish world to live in. 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2. 

HELPING HANDS 

All men at times have need of helping hands. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


169 


.... The hand that helps another most is his 
Whose own hand would find help. Dante , 11., 1 . 

Their outstretched hands may show that love is 
hidden 

Behind the mysteries that seem to cloak it. Idem . 


HENS, OLD 

We form a body sitting on Columbus. 

An old hen, even, doing this, I say, 

Would hatch out something. 

.... Wait now. You will find 

Enough old hens here to bring forth, at least, 

What they will think worth while their cackling over. 

Columbus , 11., 2. 

HEREDITY (see BIRTH) 

A flower may blossom, sweet and bright, 

Though grown in mire where hang but clouds; 

Her Haughtiness. 

I blame her not because her veins 
Contain her foul forefathers’ blood, 

But that her own work now maintains 

The present spring that taints its flood. Idem. 
We know not whence came manhood; but we know 
Whence came the man, — from unfulfilled desire 
When springs that welled from body quenched the fire 
That burned to fuse in one two souls aglow. 
Embodiment of wish, on earth below, 

For union which no earth-forms can acquire, 

Man is a spirit, aimed for regions higher, 

Entrapped and &ntrailed in a world of woe. 

What wonder if he wander on and on 
Through ways that bring no respite and no rest? 
What wonder if no crown that shines upon 
His brow can ever sate ambition’s quest? 

What wonder if death only end, anon, 

A strife that never one deems wholly blest? 

Heredity. 


HERESY 

Your church, 

That fann’d some whim of his, left smouldering, 
Some spark of doubt to ardent heresy. 

Ideals Made Real , xxxvil. 


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HEROISM AND BRUTALITY 

It is an old saying that barking dogs do not bite; 
and no one knows much of the world who is not aware 
that an essentially coarse and brutal character, a 
braggart boastful chiefly of his independence of the 
wishes or sympathy of others, is incapacitated by his 
very nature for deeds involving the grandest heroism. 

Suggestions for the Spiritual Life , xvi. 
heroes’ homes 

Yet heroes’ homes are human hearts. 

Ethan Allen. 

HERO, THE POPULAR 
And all the people while he lived, 

They loved his eagle eye; 

And when he died — ah, friends, you know 
Such spirits cannot die! 

To-day, go search those mountain wilds 
And valleys, humbly trod 
By souls whose pure, strong faith holds on 
To country, home, and God; 

Ask men who own those towering trees, 

Or plant the hillock steep ; 

The school-boys, bounding back from school, 

Or watching well the sheep; 

The housewives, where in thrifty homes 
The generous meals are spread; 

The sisters, gently handing down 
The Book when prayers are said; 

Ask all, who value aught they own, 

Whose fame all value most? — 

The flashing eye and flushing cheek 

Will figure him they boast. Idem. 

HIGHER LIFE, THE 

Conceive how barren, cold, and colorless 
Is life upon the heights. 

. . . . Conceive, as well, 

How far, and broad, and varied, and sublime 

Are earth and heaven when these are seen from them. 

Souls oft are driven from our lower life 

That thus they may explore for us the higher. 

Dante , hi., 2. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


171 


HIGH LIFE 
Man is but man : 

He cannot scan 

Too high delights, and highly rate 
The lowly joys of earth’s estate. 

The Idealist. 

HIGH POSITION 

His friends must see he does not get so high 
That falling far will hurt him. Cecil the Seer , 1. 
HILLS 

But in the east there lie sky-drifting hills. 

Their cliffs, cloud-coursed in heights of mystery, 
Dim dreamy glens, and flash’d surprise of rills, 

Had train’d in youth his faith and fantasy. 

He loved them, as a child may love his mother, 

A simple child who cannot tell you why, 

Yet something feels he feels not for another, 

Too near the springs of life for question or reply. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxii. 
hint 

Wit heeds a hint ; ’t is dulness questions it. 

Haydn , xvi. 

hints about love 

And thus a habit grew that our two lives 
Dwelt there like friends, made separate by war, 

Who out from hostile camps wave now a hand, 

And now a kerchief, but who never speak. 

And yet I cannot say love never spoke. — 

We did not mean it; but I think that love 
May tell its tales, unconscious of the fact, 

For who is conscious when God touches him? — 

But littlest acts there were; yet spirits read 
From signs too fine for measurements of space ; 

Love heeds no measurements. But hints there were; 
And yet what words of love yield more than these? 
They hit the sense of love, but fail of sense 
Where nothing loving waits to take the hint. 

Haydn , xxxvii. 

And kitten-like, at play beside the hearth, 

We told our secrets, and none knew of them. 

Idem . 


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HINTS VS. HITS 

Those who are too stupid to take hints have to be 

trained at times by getting hits. 

What Money Can't Buy , I. 

HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY OF 

All of history but fulfils the law that rules the single 
soul. 

Times there were, near earth’s beginning, when im- 
ped'd but from within, 

Men but felt the good of goodness and the sinfulness of 
sin. 

Then they learn'd of outward right, but still, too dull to 
probe its cause, 

Wasted reverence on commandments and the holy 
text of laws ; 

Now the times, at last, are coming, when the soul in 
clearer light 

Must amid unfolding learning serve the wisdom of the 
right. 

God is Lord through independence. By and by we 
all shall see 

How the truth that rules above can rule below, yet 
leave us free, 

See through all earth's changing phases whence we 
come and where we wend, — 

See the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xv. 

HOLIDAYS 

We have our holy days and holidays. 

I sometimes wonder which are holier. 

Columbus , ii., 2 . 

HOLLAND 

Of art he also found a heedful school, 

As cleanly trimm’d as dikes that guard her farms, 

Where crouching Holland makes the sea her tool, 

Nor lets one breeze escape her windmills’ arms. 

This thorough race, what have they ever slighted? — 
E’en in their church what tireless energy, 

Where crowds, in chants monotonous united, 

Praise Him who stretched their plains, in like 
monotony. A Life in Song: Serving , xliii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


*73 


HOLY MEN 

You seem a holy man. 

.... Nay, none is that. 

When men seem holy do not think of them, 

But of the cause that has affected them. 

Columbus , 11., 1. 

HOME 

Home seems a state, 

Not place. 

.... A state of happiness 

Idem , 11., 3. 
No setting so becomes 
A jewel of a woman as a home, — 

A loving home like this. 

Cecil the Seer , 111., 1. 
So storms that sweep where man in vain contends, 
When forced unshelter’d through the earth to roam, 
And trust in those who prove but fair-day friends, 
Harm not the soul well wall’d within the home. 

Let false friends go, when those of home stay near 
one, 

Privations come that but deprive of ease, 

No other loss can seem the most severe one; 

Nor other woe o’erwhelm one toiling still for these. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xvm. 
And tho’ no more his old home’s forms and faces 
Await him, when his feet no more can roam, 

In every human form and face he traces 

A likeness of the lost that makes each house a home. 

Idem , lxxxix. 

HOME, A farmer’s 

In moments when 

The stress of work is waived, perchance in hours 
Of sickness or of sorrow, or when storms 
Have block’d the roadways of accustom’d craft, 

Or evening shadows hid the daily task, 

And brought the cattle home, and shut the school 
And shop and factory; when carts and plows 
Are in their places, and the horses fed, 

And stable-doors made fast, and dogs at watch; 
When in the house the evening meal has pass’d, 


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The lamps been lighted, and the little folk 
Been put to bed with that last prayer and kiss 
Which hallows all their dreamland ; when the wife 
Takes up her sewing, and the maid draws forth 
Her embroidery work, well folded to conceal 
Her future gift from him for whom ’t is wrought, — 
Then often comes at last the poet’s hour. 

Idem , Finale. 

HOME-LIFE IN REVOLUTIONARY TIMES 
But hist! the cheers were check’d. 

“Keep mum!” the murmur spread; 

The crown, to get these men, had set 
A price on every head. 

“Five hundred dollars down, 

For him who tells of one, ” 

Was first proclaim’d: but no one named 
A man who aught had done. 

“Five thousand,” then were pledged, 

“To know who took the lead; 

And half as much to know of such 
As join’d him in the deed. ” 

The King’s commission, last, 

Sat half a year or more; 

But not a word it ever heard 
About the sixty-four. 

Forgotten were they then? 

They might have pass’d by day, 

Without a wink to make you think, 

Or hint that it was they. 

But, when the night had come; 

And door and blind were lock’d, 

And window fast, and blew the blast 
Till all the chimney rock’d; 

When, safe from eyes and ears, 

In homes where all were true, 

The way those men were feasted then 
A king, full well, might rue. 

And when the board was bare; 

And round the roaring fire, 

The nuts were crack’d and cider smack’d 
Till tooth and tongue would tire; 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


175 


When each his tale would tell 
About that ship and night, 

And still the way he dodg’d, each day, 

The British spy and spite; 

The boys who husk’d the corn 
Would forward bend, and spring, 

And draw the ears, like swords, with cheers, 

To make the rafters ring! 

The host who stirr’d the fire 
Would stab it through and through: 

You might have thought the flames he brought 
Had burn’d a cruiser too. 

The girls would fancy then 
It was the cruiser flared; 

And round the walls would aim like balls 
The apples red they pared. 

“To arms!” would cry the men; 

And each a maid purloin ; 

While mother’s yarn would snap, and darn 
The dance that all would join. 

Ah, so we hush’d the tale! 

Yet spies that nigh would roam 
Could not decoy the smallest boy 
To tell what pass’d at home. 

We hush’d it, till the hush 
Became our countersign 
To save from those we knew were foes, 

And make our men combine. 

We hush’d it, till we learn’d 
That thousands would be free, 

And long’d to know which way to go 
And when the call would be. 

We hush’d it, till we heard 
What Concord had to bear; 

Then shouted loud, a mighty crowd, 

“Our heroes lead us there!” 

The Last Cruise of the Gaspee. 

HOME LIFE WITH LOVE 

How swiftly sped the hours in happy nights 
When, after work, he rested there at home! 


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Such winning ways he had to lure my trust ! 

Such sweet pet names would call me, till I felt 
So fondly small, he well might be my lord! 

Would tease me so, anon to comfort me! 

Or rouse my temper that he mild might seem ; 

Or tell such tales, that in my dreams I laugh’d 
At wit reflecting, though distorting, his. 

Haydn , xxxvm. 

HOMES 

How, all its chairs made vacant one by one, 

Th’ applause rose thinner at his bachelor-club ; 

How, brief as birds’, are human mating-times; 

How men, mere songs forgot, withdraw to nests — 

To homes — their worlds, where all the sky is fill’d 
With sunny smiles they love, and shadowy locks. 

How sweet were life whose light and shade were these! 

Ideals Made Real , v. 
HOME-SINGING 

How blest are homes, all fill’d with song, 

The mother’s hum, the choral strong, 

The hymn that bears great thoughts that throng 
Where all pure hope is winging ! 

How heaves the breast in air so sweet, 

How thrills the blood it fills to meet, 

While all the spirit bounds to greet 
The joys of life in singing! 

A Song on Singing. 

HONESTY AND WORK 

When you’re older, Miss, you’ll find it isn’t honest 
folks that earn their living, cent by cent, that prove 
dishonest when they deal with you. They’re not the 
kind your father meant. He meant the kind that 
never work for what they get ; but live by filching what 
others work to get. Their hands are not like mine ; not 
hard, but soft. They slip around you like a snake, — 
the sneaks! I’m not a boy like that. 

The Little Twin Tramps , 11. 

HONIED PHRASES 

The kiss of honied phrases is apt to leave behind 
them what proves sticky and may sicken us. 

Idem. 


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177 


HONIED WORDS 

Too often ’tis those who bring us honied words whose 
stings are sharpest when they leave us. Idem. 
honor ( see divorce) 

I honor’d God the more from this, the hour 
I found His honor so encased in man. 

Ideals Made Real , lxi. 
We men who wed incur a debt of honor. 

.... But should that let one harm himself ? 
.... Why, honor 

Is in oneself, and so does not depend 
On anything another is or does. Dante , ill., 1. 

Had he look’d, in his youth, 

Past the shadows of form to the substance of truth? 
Had he learn’d that all life turns to seasons, and shifts 
From winter and spring into summer and fall? 

Or divined that eternity, balancing gifts, 

Grants honor like heaven, a state after strife, 

And a glorified name to a sacrificed life? 

Did he know that sighs, when yearning for love, 

Best open the soul to breathe in from above 
The air immortal, and make it worth while 
That art should chisel in marble clear 
The lines divine that temper a smile 
Beyond the sway of a mortal’s cheer? — 

Did he know it or not, perchance for his good 
His work was lonely and misunderstood. 

Perchance it was well, the best for the soul, 

Its nature, its nurture, that aught to control 
The aims inspiring his life or its plan 
Had gain’d but little from earth or man. 

Unveiling the Monument. 

HONOR, AT THE EXPENSE OF SYMPATHY 

For all whose paths 
Of honor and of sympathy divide, 

One choice alone remains — to dwell content 
With loneliness, and one’s ideal, and God. 

Cecil the Seer , ill., 2. 

HONOR, DESIRABLE ONLY FOR EARNERS OF IT 

A man’s best friend 

Will bid him wait for honor till he earn it. 


178 


A POETS CABINET 


Amid earth’s envious crush of frenzied greed, 

It is no kindness, pushing to the front 
One who is not a leader. Zealous forms 
That crowd him there may tramp him under foot. 

Idem , i. 

HONOR, ONE woman’s SENSE OF 
.... You really should not touch them. 

.... No? Why not? 

.... He would not like it. 

.... Oh, of course not! but 

He need not know it; need he? Columbus , I., 3. 

HONORS IN OFFICE ( See STATION) 

.... This getting office is like getting married — 
for better, or for worse. No man can gain its honors, 
and escape from some dishonors. 

.... No portraits ever grace a hall of fame with- 
out suggesting caricatures. 

.... Our metal may be gold; but beat the gold, 
as men do when they make a server of it, the plate may 
prove so thin that every bulge embossed in beauty on 
its upper side is matched by hideous holes upon its 
under. Tuition for her Intuition , 1. 

HOPE 

And yields not heaven some gleam to thought, 

Or hope by spirit-whispers brought, 

To guide toward all our souls have sought? 

Ay, ay; do not clear skies reveal, 

At times, to cheer our wavering zeal, 

Bright realms that mists no more conceal? 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xv. 
When lit by hope, rebuffs 
Are merely clouds aglow where dawn brings light, 
But when no ray of hope is visible 
The dark seems full damnation. 

Columbus , 1., 2. 

Down underneath my deep despair, 
Where heaved a sigh that loosen’d all my soul, 

Like some sweet kiss of sudden death that draws 
To sudden bliss, when men to heaven are snatch’d 
From all the roar and rage of war, there came 
One hope. Ideals Made Real , lix. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


179 


HOPE AND FEAR 
Sweet hope is a bird of light, 

The. pulsing touch of whose aspiring wing 
Thrills to new life the very air one breathes. 

In gloom like ours the trembling heart but leaps 
To dodge the whir of some blind bat of fear. 

The Aztec God , 1. 

HOPE VS. DESPAIR 

The brute-despair my soul has housed so long 
Is trained to bear hard blows, and beat them back; 
But this frail trembling babe of hope, just born, 

Oh it were cruel murder, maiming it ! 

Dante , ill., 2. 

Oft, while the eyes of hope are looking up, 

The devil trips the feet. The Aztec God t 11. 
Impossible! Heaven cannot be malicious. 

What? build so high a structure for my hope, 

Then knock the prop from under? All, all gone? 

Columbus , 1., 2. 

HUDSON RIVER 

His house was built beside those lordly banks 

That rise to greet the Hudson’s glimmering train; 
Where man, as if to it were due his thanks, 

Has decked with art its every hill and plain. 

Below him flowed that rare and royal river, 

So white with sails, and waveless tho’ so wide, 

And first of rivers destin’d to deliver 

To steam and wheel the power to stem their cur- 
rents’ tide. A Life in Song: Serving , lxv. 

HUMANITARIANISM 

To wisdom’s eyes all paths in life reveal 
Each man a sentinel of all men’s weal. 

Midnight in a City Park. 

HUMANITY 

Believe me, in humanity it is, 

In charities, and kindly courtesies, 

In eyes that sparkle, and in cheeks that blush 
With love and hope and faith, which make them flush, 
That all the bloom and fruitage of the earth 
Attain their consummation and their worth. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xn. 


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HUMANITY, LOVE FOR 

“Here where nature rules and gives its due to all 
humanity, 

Here must be the land, ” I thought, “of all the dearest 
prophecy. 

His way surely ends in brightness, who is ruled in every 
plan 

By a love like God’s, not slighting one whom God has 
made a man. ’ ’ A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxxvi. 
No pride in man can thrill the mind 
That treats, like soulless brutes, its kind; 

No heavenly father seems to cheer 
Those who see not his children here. 

The only joy that love can know 
Dwells in our own hearts when aglow. 

The only hope that faith can feel 
Our spirits in themselves reveal. 

After the Lynching . 

HUMANITY, OBLIGATION TO 
.... We are under obligations, as I said before, to 
society. 

.... We are under more obligations, I think, to 
humanity. 

.... But society’s a part of humanity. 

.... It forms a larger part, I think, of inhumanity. 
When we follow society’s lead, or become leaders in it, 
we tread a path, and set a pace, that may tumble half 
of those behind us down a precipice. 

. . . . If so, it is their own fault. 

.... Yes and no. It’s our fault so far as they are 
led astray by our example. Our deeds, mother, never 
end with ourselves. They include what we do to others . 
.... What others? 

.... All others — persons or things; yes, all ob- 
jects that surround us off to the remotest star. No 
one can think of himself except as the center of the 
universe with all of which he is connected as a soul 
with a body, and this with the atmosphere around the 
body. There is so much truth, at least, in what some 
call the exploded science of astrology. 

What Money Can't Buy , hi. 


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181 


HUMAN NATURE 

He sought he knew not what: he found mankind. 

In all the regions where his feet would wend, 

*T would thrill his heart in every sphere to find 
How love reveal’d can always find a friend. 

Who have not faults? who are not faults regretting? 

Who wish not much? who ever gain their aim? 
Who form not plans for all mankind’s abetting? 

And is not human nature in us all the same? 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxv. 
We trust in human nature; 

The conscience, ruling there, 

May guard the right, full well as kings 
With crowns their dearest care. 

Love rules in human nature, 

For, all of history through, 

The slaves have been the many, 

The tyrants been the few. 

The Lebanon Boys in Boston. 

HUMAN, SOME MEN ARE NOT 
To understand what is humanizing, people have to 
be human themselves. Some are not so. When you 
try to train them, they are like dogs. You ask them to 
lend you a hand, and they can only scratch with a paw. 

What Money Can't Buy , hi. 

HUNGRY MAN 

There’s not a fish that’s caught by bait as easily as 
a hungry man. The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 

HUSBAND 

She must not thwart me so. 

Her life’s full destiny must she know, 

When dower’d with mine own, as well, she stands 
With doubled head and heart and hands. 

Ah, could she but dream 
How sweet it would seem 
For me to give my life for her own, 

To be her slave and that alone, 

A willing slave, 

Who all worth living in life would save, 

Though I toil’d all day 
In the weariest way, 


A POET'S CABINET 


If only at home could await me that rest, 

More sweet than ever a seraph blest, 

When, welcom’d for all that in me was best, 

With wonder new, I bent to the grace 
And infinite depth of her thrill’d embrace! 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxvm. 
ideal and ideals {see beauty, devotion, poetry) 
Ideas, however, which have been conformed by 
imagination to certain known objects, events, or ex- 
periences which, nevertheless, they transform — ideas 
which have been given definiteness of figure which, 
nevertheless, they transfigure — constitute what we 
mean by ideals. 

The Representative Significance of Form, ix. 
Ah, they know not his better choice, 

Who with ideals for his friends 

Finds, in the light toward which he wends, 

What all the lure of wrong transcends. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xi. 
When the best ideals lure one, 

Only then can aught assure one 
That his motive is a pure one. 

Idem , xxiv. 

Ah, that which made the stars made earth; 

And heaven’s is one with human worth. 

The light that lures beyond all sin 
Is one with love’s that burns within. 

Whate’er I doubt, I know full well 
Who made the soul must it impel ; 

Whate’er may fail, heaven must reveal 

The truth to those who truly feel 

That they pursue a true ideal. Idem , xxxvi. 

I told her about my soul’s ideal 

That came from God, and was God to me; 

And which, in hope that it might be real, 

I had search’d the world in vain to see. 

Idem , Loving, xxu. 
Unseen by us, I dream of life, 

That with our own has union, 

And in the lulls of earthly strife 
With ours can hold communion. 


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183 


A life it is that waits above 
Our mortal forms here living; 

And makes them instruments of love 
Which it to man is giving. 

For us, despite the claims of earth, 

It forms the one thing real ; 

It brings us all that life is worth; 

We call it our ideal. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxx. 

A life it is, whose charms forestall 
The world’s most rare relation, — 

Our guardian spirit, consort, all 
We need for every station. 

It owns the face we dream about 
To which our souls are mated; 

And all we love in earth without, 

Its impress has created. 

Its features vague seem veil’d for us 
In every phase of beauty; 

And oft, through good embodied thus, 

They woo our wills to duty. 

They make us god-like whose delight 
In forms and faces real 

But springs to greet the image bright 

Of this divine ideal. Idem. 

It wrought his woe, and this his reason knew. 

He knew his own ideals made him sad. 

He yet would rather sigh and urge the true, 

Than smile and seem contented with the bad. 

So oft within life’s theatre of action, 

He play’d the preacher, where men sought a clown; 

And took a keen but morbid satisfaction 

When those who only cared for pleasure hiss’d him 
down. Idem , Serving , ix. 

Most men who court ideals 
Have first their idol ; and, the false god fell’d, 
Hoard then the fringe that dangled on its train, 
And spend their lives in hunting other trains 
To match but forms and colors of the first. 

Ideals Made Real , lv. 


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You serve ideals, like all idiots. 

Idem , xn. 

idealist’s misjudgments 
A mind with thought forever in the clouds 
May be excused for stumbling, now and then, 

At what, if seen through, might appear mere shadow. 

Dante , n., 1. 
idealist’s view of life 

What they see 

Is never in the thing at which they look ; 

But, like a halo when it rings the moon, 

All in the clouds, and drawn there by themselves. 

.... Break through the halo, you might find them 
out. 

. . . . Or else be found out by them. 

. . . . That is it; 

And by-and-by come tumbling from the hights 
Where they, not we, have put us, — in a realm 
Where pebbles all seem palaces, and mounds all 
mounts, 

And clouds all continents, and moons have faces, 

And all the littlest stars that prick the sky 
Are spear-points of some huge hobgoblin. 

Idem, i., i. 

One may excuse a bird, if, when it flies, 

It fails in seeing everything on earth. 

Idem, II., i. 

ideality (. see poetry) 

Oh what were life without the worth 
Of ideality, — 

Its home, heaven’s halo round the earth ; 

Its language, poetry. 

The world of deeds whose armor gleams 
May light the path to right 
Far less than rays that rise in dreams, 

And days that dawn at night. 

God’s brightest light illumes the soul. 

That light this life denies 
Till earth’s horizons lift and roll 
Like lids from opening eyes. 

The Poet's Lesson . 


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185 


IDEALS, INFLUENCE OF MEN’S, ON WOMEN 
It’s men’s ideals that keep us ladies. I’m sure that 
men are better pleased with other men that act like 
women, than women are. When we want women, we 
take to our own mirrors — thus. 

The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 

If men should let the girls do what they choose, we 
never should have ladies. Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 

IDEALS LOST 

At last, we had parted; 

Nor had ventured one hint, forsooth, 

Of the light that gave heaven its glory, 

And earth its worth, in our youth. 

He had wrought for wealth, I had married; 

We had both earned board and bed; 

But for what had we made a living 
When all we had lived for was dead? 

Ideals that Were. 

IDEALS NOT MARKETABLE 

But I hardly think fulfilling one’s ideal the surest 
way of filling, too, one’s purse. Who want ideals? 
You ask our merchants; every one will say the finest 
wares find fewest purchasers . Why not the finest writ- 
ings fewest readers ? You think men weigh in metal got 
from mire a fair exchange for what is got from mind? 
One represents the extractioning of greed, the other 
something given by the spirit. The Two Paths , 1. 

IDEALS, THEIR INFLUENCE ON SPIRITUAL LIFE 

.... They did not see us. 

. . . . No; 

For they did not look up. 

.... I know, but why? — 

Where all things round them were so new and strange? 
.... The spirit is the slave of its desire. 

They did not care to look above themselves. 

.... Pray tell me who they were. They seemed 
so near, 

And yet so many million miles away. 

They looked like people, too, whom once I knew; 

Yet moved like cuckoos jointed on a clock, 

Accenting nothing they have thought themselves, 


A POETS CABINET 


1 86 

Or have the force to make another think. 

.... They seemed as if lost souls. 

. . . . * Lost souls, you say? 

.... Did you not note them — how they wandered 
on; 

Nor knew their destination? 

. . . . Heaven forbid! 

. . . . Why pray for this? — You think that force 
rules here, — 

That spirits are not free to wander where 
Their own ideals bear them? 

.... Those they formed 

On earth you mean? 

.... Where else could they be formed? 

.... And whither, think you, will ideals bear 
Those whom we just have seen? 

.... Where would you deem 

These could be realized — save on the earth? 

.... But some of them seemed looking for their 
Christ. 

.... I fear those looking only for their Christ 
May sometimes fail to find the Christ of God. 

.... But will they never find Him? 

.... Do you think 

That those in search but for a false ideal, 

Could recognize Him, even should they find Him? 
.... Is not the Christ of God in all the churches? 
.... Is he not preached through men? 

.... And are not men 

Controlled ? — inspired ? 

.... And, if so, from what source? 

Are there no spirits in the line between 
Divinity and man? — And what of man, — 

This urn of earth in which the true seed falls? — 
There was an Arab in Mohammed’s time; 

In Joan of Arc’s, there was a maid of France. 

.... But would you grant their claim? 

.... Some keen as you 

Believed it true. And is it charity 
To deem them dupes? 

.... But one must rate them thus, 

Or call upon their prophets. 


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187 


• . . . # Think you so? 

One hears of gypsies telling what comes true. 

Does this truth prove them seers of all the truth? 

Believe not every spirit; prove 

.... But how? 

.... How but by what is told, and character 
Of him who tells it? To the true soul, truth 
Appeals to taste, as beauty to the sense; 

Its test is quality. The truth of Christ 

Is proved by traits of Christ. The like comes from like. 

Their inspiration is the nearest God 

Whose lives and loves are nearest Him. 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2. 

ILLNESS 

How pale he lay! 

We fear’d for him, lest life should slip its net: 
The fleshly cords were worn to film so thin ! 

But how the soul would shine through them ! 

Haydn, xi. 

IMAGE 

Awake, asleep, throned constant o’er my heart, 

I served this image all intangible, 

This photographic fantasy of truth, 

This fairy nothingness of vanish’d fact, 

A shape to love, minute yet mighty still, 

To senses nothing, but to spirit all. 

Ideals Made Real, xliii. 

IMAGE, man’s, IN WOMEN’S EYES 
Give a woman a pair of eyes and bring almost any 
man near her, he will see his image inside them, an 
image exceedingly small, an image, too, upside down. 
But a man never saw any image inside those eyes but 
his own. The Ranch Girl , 111. 

IMAGERY 

.... Men term youth poetic. 

. . . . Rightly too. 

The freshest fires are brightest. But our thoughts, 
How e’er they burn and melt, not often flow 
To moulds of nature’s rarest imagery, 

Till life has been well sought to find and store it. 

Dante, 1., 1. 


A POETS CABINET 


1 88 


IMAGINATION ( see FANCY) 

Unless you wish to think and feel, and thrill 
To feel, there is a larger world than ours. 

.... In one’s imagination. 

.... Be it so. 

Imagination is the soul of thought. 

Columbus , I., I. 

Oh, they have turn’d from all the pain 
That came from earth they served in vain, 

To that still world within the brain. 

Where fancy forms it mead and main. 

There many a fairest vision, sought 
In clearer light than sunlight brought, 

Is mirror’d in the wells of thought. 

But oh, how oft must one surmise, 

While o’er the soul’s wild sea of sighs 
Imagination’s glories rise, 

That, as at sunset, every form 
Derives its best from cloud and storm! 

Oft fancy works but to appease 
A restlessness that shows disease, 

A fever that the brain would ease. 

Oft crimson floods of thought impart 
Their brilliant hues to speech and art, 

When thus a pierced and bleeding heart 
Is drain’d in drawing forth a dart. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , vm. 

The power that makes imagination burst 
Through limits of our world, as you have done, 

To find this new world, makes it pass beyond them. 
The glories of that sunset-land may all 
Be in the land you saw, or in the sky. 

Columbus , iv., I. 
IMAGINATION AND KNOWLEDGE 
Imagine only — not the same as knowing! 
Imagination dreams : its dreams anon 
May leap Time’s processes, or, keen-eyed, spy 
The end from the beginning. Yet such dreams 
Come but to him so stirred in sympathy 
With nature’s courses, or inspired in aim 
For nature’s goals, or swept on by its force, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


189 


That sheer inertia of the soul outspeeds 
The pace of grosser matter. 

.... And to you 

At times 


. . . . The times come seldom. Ay, not oft 
Do fancy’s flowers foretoken fruit ; not oft 
Is ripe fruit laden on the limbs that bloom 
Most brilliant with the flowers. — Yet have I seen it, — 
Imagination imagining true life, 

Life true to all its images; and then 
I found a seer, earth’s rarest product. Idem , v., 2. 


IMAGINATION AND MOUNTAINS 
When dwelling in a realm of endless plains, 

Those whom thy shade had haunted pointed out 
The clouds, and bade me find thine image there, — 
With what delight my heart first welcomed thee! 
And then, like one whose form lies prone in sleep, 
My young imagination woke and rose 
And strove to climb, and — heaven alone can tell 
How wisely — has been climbing ever since. 

Greylock . 


IMAGINATION, A SOURCE OF TRUTH 

Then I thought this whole odd vision might be an 
imagined one; 

Some had deem’d that half life’s fabrics were from 
mere thin fancy spun. 

“Is it so?” at last I question’d; “are not things the 
things they seem? 

Do souls oft but heed delusions, heeding steps of which 
they dream?” 

“Those who think so,” said she softly, “overlook, 
when thinking so, 

Truths within man’s nature deeper than proof’s 
plummets ever go. 

Souls reflect all life like mirrors, and their dreams by 
day, by night, 

Though they oft distort, oft image facts too fine for 
finite sight.” A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxm. 


IMAGINATION, THE TEMPLE OF 
We had left that place of fancy, and had reach’d a 
star-lit sea; 


A POETS CABINET 


And across its dark, deep waters, clouds, like smoke 
where burned the lee, 

Clung about a crystal temple, rising from the surf below 

Like a dawn of endless promise o’er a night of ended 
woe. 

Everywhere behind the cloud-mist, could we see the 
temple rise, 

Everywhere, each side and o’er us, till we lost it in the 
skies. 

Then, anon, at pearly steps, before an entrance dim 
and vast, 

In some way, but how I knew not, we had left our 
car at last ; 

And through gold-mail’d hosts were moving, who 
would part, and pass us on, 

Swept, like gods, amid a glory blazed from all we 
gazed upon, 

Toward a towering portico, a cliff of shafts that up- 
ward went, 

Till the very stars appear’d to trail beneath their 
pediment. Idem , xxv. 

Then at once wide doors before us open’d like a dawn- 
ing day, 

And disclos’d a hall resplendent, sweeping through 
long leagues away. 

All about it clouds of incense floated, fringed with 
golden haze, 

And within them lamps, half -hidden, shone like sparks 
amid a blaze; 

While huge caryatic figures, carved on columns tall 
and white, 

Filed far off like phantom sentries guarding thus a 
phantom rite. Idem , xxvn. 

When, behold, high, high uplifted, I was borne along 
the air, 

On and on, with slippery speed, far sliding still to 
swifter flight, 

Where strode by us tall, white columns, like gigantic 
ghosts of night ; 

Where high arches fell and rose up like an ocean in the 
sky, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


191 

And bright lamps like lines of lightning on the clouded 
wall flew by. 

Then more steadfast came a splendor, and, amid the 
burning air, 

Checks that gently stay’d our progress, in a domed 
rotunda there. Idem , xxix. 

Broad this was and high, heaved heedless of that 
lavish’d wealth of space, 

As all else had been, — a marvel even in that marvellous 
place. 

Such a sight creation’s dawning might have seen, when 
first arose 

Morning mists to end the night of an eternity’s repose. 
All the pavement gleam’d as bright as could that first 
chaotic sea, 

When it floated all the germs of all the beauty yet to be. 
And the shafts that held the dome, and seem’d to hold 
in half the skies, 

Rose with lines of earthly grace, but wondrous in their 
hues and size. 

Far above their hazy flutings burst in blazing capitals, 
Where amid encircling glory hovered hosts of terminals. 
Did they live or not, I knew not, but to my confused 
suspense 

Their high distance made them holy; and I bow’d in 
reverence. Idem , xxx. 

IMAGINATION VS. PERCEPTION 

.... It’s easy enough to see through things if 
only you keep your eyes open. 

.... And your imagination at work. That’s im - 
portant. Like working beer, it sometimes doubles one’s 
perceptive powers. What Money Can't Buy , 11. 

IMITATION 

About the lips 

Found sweet by merely one, all swarm like bees. 

But let that one forsake him all forsake him. 

The Aztec God , 11. 

IMITATION, AS A RESULT OF LOVE 

“Ah, strange was it 

That oft then I recall’d your form, your words? 


192 


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That then I came to do as you would do, 

And think as you would think? — or that my tongue 
Should linger o’er your language, as o’er sweets 
Re-tasted still again? — or that, anon, 

Those accents ardent with your own dear aims, 
Should fire mine own to ardor? — or that then 
My soul should flash forth light that flamed within, 
And tracing far the rays that left it so, 

Should find here — ” 

“One to help you, friend?” I asked — 
Then let us both thank heaven that made us weak 
So may a mortal pair bide, each to each, 

Both priest and partner; like the church, their home; 
For what are churches here but chosen courts 
Of One pure Spirit, moving all to love? ” 

Ideals Made Real } lxxiii. 

IMITATION IN MANNERS 

You are spending most of your time now in taking off 
the manners that suit your own character, in order to 
put on those that suit theirs. Where Society Leads , I. 

IMMATURE THEORIES 
No theory spun for concepts immature 
Can ever fit their full maturity. 

Columbus , II., 2. 

IMMORTALITY (see LIFE AND HEAVEN) 

Yet, though never mortal vision saw the spirits’ 
torches flame, 

Or the white of robes ethereal, rustling never when 
they came ; 

Never prest the hand so sacred from the sacred work 
it plies; 

Never watch’d the light of heaven within those peace- 
ful soul-lit eyes; 

Never heard that distant music, which can hush the 
seraph’s wings 

With the pathos all unconscious, which from earth 
each memory brings; 

Though no saintly guest ere blest us down amid these 
vales below ; 

Or unveil’d for us that beauty which no eyes of earth 
can know; 



That oft then I recall’d your form, your words? 

That then I came to do as you would do, 

And think as you would think? 

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Still our souls would dream about it, still would feel its 
endless charm, 

Drawing all the good within us toward a life no ill can 
harm. A Life in Song: Watching , xxxm. 

Ah, do not deny the soul its hopes of immortality; 
Where did ever noblest living seek a lesser destiny? 

Idem , Dreaming , xxxv. 
IMPATIENCE 

No jerk 

Can root out all the wrong in just a trice. 

Wherever grain can ripen, tares must lurk 
And grow till harvest-time. ’T was Christ’s advice; 
Impatience cannot force the fruits of Paradise. 

A Life in Song: Daring , xx. 
impetuous {see anger, self-control, and zeal) 

Too impetuous 

And stormy was the temper of the youth ; 

And blustering weather blew about their ears 
Who cross’d his pathway, like November winds 
That shake the mad red leaves, turn pale the flowers, 
But leave the vales as barren as a waste. 

His zeal wrought little. A Life in Song: Note 2. 
IMPRESS ON THE MIND 
Nay, no land shows one sunlit scene 
That rose-like bursts from earth’s wide green, 
But brings an image swept away 
When eyelids close at close of day. 

’T is but the impress mind receives, 

That, sunn’d or sombre, never leaves. 

My Dream at Cordova. 
IMPULSE AND REASON {see REASON) 

My head would oft, made jealous of my heart, 

Deny that reason ruled my impulses. 

And oft my heart, to bear such weight of joy, 

Would faint from too much feeling. I would ask 
Could I be sane yet find my life so sweet? — 

At least I would be sure; so like a friend 
Who finds a long-lost friend amid a crowd, 

And stares, and holds him at arm’s, length, a time, 
Ere clasping him with courage to his breast 
That wellnigh bursts the while, I held her off, 


13 


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This long-sought soul that mine had found a friend; 
And did not dare to trust her as I would. 

Ideals Made Real , xix. 
My heart rose up from reason to rebel ; 

Indignant to have found a theory 

That dared to hold an innate impulse down ; 

While will, caught there, betwixt the heart and head, 
Each charge would bear, and yet forbear to act. 

Idem , xlii. 

INARTISTIC EFFECTS, HOW AVOIDED 

The only sure way of learning how to avoid in- 
artistic effects, is to learn positively how to produce 
artistic ones. Rhythm and Harmony , ix. 

INDEPENDENCE OF NEIGHBORS 
You and I like to be independent of our neighbors, 
especially of any whom we think to be particularly 
self-centered. But one who tries to be independent of 
even such neighbors, when, by another course, he could 
make something out of them, is not acting the part 
of a wise man. National Probity. 

INDEPENDENCE OF SOCIETY 
.... I think you women ought to show a little 
more independence. 

.... But society — 

.... I suppose society — some kinds of it — might 
let you alone. Where Society Leads , i. 

INDEPENDENCE OF THOUGHT (see FREEDOM) 

Full many are paths where life can guide us. 
Whichever we take from some they divide us. 
Wherever we go, and follow men not, 

No slight of their leading is ever forgot ; 

The best of our deeds is quoted as bad; 

Once John seem’d a devil; and Jesus a sot. 

Our toil — what of it? — is lonely and sad. 

But God made us all, in spite of the throng 
Who deem us, if not like themselves, made wrong. 

Love and Life , xxxvm. 

For God has given you your own moods, friend; 

And are you not responsible for them? 

And if you yield them up too readily, 

Not meaning wrong, yet may you not mistake? 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


195 


Our lives, remember, are not sounding-boards, 

Not senseless things, resounding for a world 
That nothing new can find in what we give. 

If one but echo back another’s note, 

Can he give forth God’s message through his own? 

Haydn , xvi. 

INDIANS 

Well I 

Take any man who flushes red all over, 

As they do when I meet them, for a foe. 

Columbus , v., 1. 

individual ( see social, and also society vs . indi- 
vidual) 

INDIVIDUALITY OF THOUGHT 
And when the thought is in one, when it springs, 
Why, then, not let it spring? The world is not 
So fill’d with thoughts that it can spare our own. 
And if we startle folks, jog off the guise 
Of their deceit, we spy them as they are. 

Ideals Made Real , xvm. 
We all when in our noblest moods 
Crave homage for our souls’ nobility. 

But what our souls are in themselves, who know, 
Save as our r61es report us outwardly? 

Did not divine hands form us as we are? 

Who love us as we are, love higher things 

Than those who love what earth would make of us. 

Idem. 

INDULGENCE, ONE PHASE SUBSTITUTED FOR ANOTHER 

.... Instead of beer, then, I suppose the women 
would give us candy. 

.... And, with it, dyspepsia. 

.... And with dyspepsia whiskey, as its cure. 
.... And, if not cured, dyspeptic dispositions that 
damn one’s home life more than drunkenness. 

.... Make drunkenness in those they drive from 
home. Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 

INEFFICIENCY 

Power and wealth 

Both loom before you. When I tell it you, 

And strive to urge you toward them, you, blind loot, 


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Squat, blinking like an owl; or, if you stir, 

But flutter, blunder, miss your aim, and fall 
From off the very branch, the topmost branch, 

You ought to perch upon. Cecil the Seer , 1. 

INFALLIBLE 

Yet, all may fail of truth ; none fail like those 
Who deem themselves the most infallible : 

None more than men who, fallible in proof, 

Yet flout the failure of a woman’s guess. 

Haydn , xvi. 

INFERENCE 

That facts are facts is plain without explaining. 

To know things grow, we need not know their method. 
To think things handiwork, we need not see 
The hand that does the work. Dante, 11., 2. 

INFERIOR 

True men are never sent 
By their inferior. They will face him down; 

And not turn tail like driven beasts of burden. 

Columbus , v., 1. 

INFIDEL 

The infidel is one who does not trust 

The power that made and moves the soul within. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 

INFIDELITY TO SELF 

Grand it is, to know that mortals, though their deeds 
appear their own, 

When aroused in noblest effort never need to toil 
alone. 

When athirst for good, we turn to springs that in the 
soul well high 

And within their depths reflected see a fairer earth and 
sky, # 

Grand it is to feel that visions making all our powers 
aspire 

Mirror oft the truth above us imaged thus to bless 
desire. 

And if heaven, indeed, have moved us, when our spirit 
so is awed, 

Infidelity to self is infidelity to God. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xm. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


197 


INFLUENCE 

Yet why judge influence by what most men prize? 
Must that which leads the spirit have recourse 
To what attracts to station, or to guise? 

Naught draws life heavenward like the sunlight’s 
force. 

But sunlight never blest one man with eyes 
Lured but to gaze upon its blinding source. 

Influence . 

INFLUENCE, BEING AN 

Think not I lived my life 
To beg men for a badge to brag about! 
Enough, if I have been an influence. 

Columbus , v., 2. 

INFLUENCE, WHEN UNSYMPATHETIC 

Some minds that try 
To be in touch with ours but tickle them; 

Or vex an itching that can merely fret us. 

Withal, too, they but scratch the brain’s outside; 
And then, as if they took the hair for thought, 
Exhibit this, when tossed and puffed, as proving 
How they themselves have thus our brain developed. 

Dante } 1., 1. 

INNER MEANING, THE ( See INWARD, OUTWARD, and 
spiritual) 

What then remains for life? — If one have aimed 
For outward profit, nothing. If his thought 
Have always, through the outer, sought the inner, 
Then, not alone, the stars that shine on high 
May all prove beacons, guiding on and on 
To havens holding glories infinite, 

But each frail flower that blooms for but an hour 
May store in memory an ideal of beauty, 

A sense of sweetness, that shall never leave him. 

West Mountain. 

INNOCENT FEARFUL OF SUSPICION 

If he himself have done what makes him guilty, we 
shall frighten him; and, if he haven’t done it, we shall 
frighten him still more. It takes the surprising in this 
world to make the startling. Spiritualists aren’t 
afraid of ghosts, because they have got ready for 


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them; and, ten times to one, the innocent are more 
afraid of being suspected than the guilty are of being 
detected. The Snob and the Sewing Girl , in. 

INSANE 

I had a cousin once who went insane, 

And all his family had to play insane 
To keep him company. The sport was royal 
Till, sure that he was royal and they slaves, 

He ordered off their heads. 

.... And then? 

.... And then 

They left off playing, and made war on him; 

And so dethroned him. They should do so here. 

Columbus , 1., 3. 
insanity {see madness) 

Lest, if my cup of fear I fill, 

Insanity, the glee of ill, 

Shall rave upon the throne of will. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xn. 

INSENSIBILITY TO SORROW 

Why, I thought her tears would melt away her very 
face. Humph! Curse your soul! To see that sight 
and not grow sentimental, one should be devoid of 
senses not alone, but sense. On Detective Duty , ill. 
INSIDE THE SOUL 

.... You think that any soul can ever see what 
lies inside another? 

.... No; not if it lies. It ought to stand up to be 
seen. The Two Paths , 1. 

INSIGHT AND INSPIRATION 
Though no new message may inspire them, insight 
May often read through oldest form new meaning. 

Dante , ill., 2. 

INSPIRATION 

In the soul’s profoundest depth when all without is 
dim and still, 

Oft a breath of inspiration lights a flame to guide the will ; 
And the men who grope in darkness, where the gloom 
may lead astray, 

By this flame aglow within them read some signals of 
the way; 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


199 


Nor pursue mere flash and shadow; oft for those who 
still press on, 

Outward light will dawn far brighter than the soul’s 
it shines upon. 

Then, when inward love is kindled and the outward 
doubts dissolve, 

Safe within a mystic orbit doubly blest our souls 
revolve, 

Safe in life’s completed orbit, where from faith they 
move to sight, 

From the truth within to truth that floods the cosmos 
with its light. 

But, alas, outside the orbit only gloom and grief have 
sway. 

Heaven preserve us all from straying, guide our wish 
and guide our way, 

Join for us the lost connection, where all nature’s 
currents blend 

With the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xiv. 

Is mind a deep that wells with most of thought 
When void the most? I tell you none can draw 
A truthful inspiration save from truth. 

The poet’s ken may people heaven like clouds, 

All phantom shaped, and splendid as their sun; 

But all his fairest forms were vapors first 

That heaven drew, mist-like, from the earth beneath. 

Thought decks itself in holiday attire, — 

Turns fantasy, — to expend the inertia large 
Of large reserves of philosophic force, 

Forced into play, the night’s dream opening where 
The day’s work closes. Ideals Made Real , liii. 

The one sure proof of inspiration is 
That it inspires. Dante , li. f 1. 

INSPIRATIONS 

The thoughts that live like spirits in the words, 

And save our own thought through what they incar- 
nate! Idem, 1., 1. 

INSPIRATION VS. IMAGINATION 

Inspiration is of the depths. It has to do with that 

which comes from within. Imagination is of the 


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surface. It has to do with that which is mirrored 
from without. In religion the predominating rela- 
tionship is to a source beyond human control; in 
art, a source within human control is of equal 
importance. 

The Representative Significance of Form , vii. 

inspiring power {see spirit) 

Deep underneath our nature is a power 

That pushing forth through soil and seed and flower, 

Moves on and out through all of sentient life, 

And struggles most in man; nor can the strife 

Be ended ever, till the force controls 

The last least impulse that impels our souls. 

E’en then this power, inspiring words and deeds, 
Though check’d, at times, in customs or in creeds, 
Anon bursts through all these to show the stress 
Of that behind them which would thus express 
Through finite forms that it is limitless. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xn. 

INSTINCT 

What is this instinct, that it should not lie? 

If one should feel the instinct of the lamb 
While skipping to welcome the butcher’s knife 
That waits to slaughter it, would he be wise 
To follow instinct? 

“Why not?” answer’d he: 

“The lamb was made that it might die for man : 

It follows instinct and dies easily. 

The soul was made that it might live for God: 

It follows instinct and lives happily.” 

Haydn , xlix. 

May there not be 

Some depth, beyond the reach of mortal sight, 
Within whose grooves unseen our spirits glide 
Unconscious of the balancings of will? 

God’s touch may be too subtle to be sensed. 

May it not stir beneath all conscious powers, 

A spontaneity that moves the soul 
As instinct moves the body? — Ah, to me, 

Love seems an instinct that impels them both. 

Idem. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


201 


intentions ( see meant) 

He intended well ; 

But good intentions, if they be not mail’d 
In prudence and well train’d to self-control, 

Are no more fitted to contend with wrong 
Than half-stripp’d serfs with steel-clad veterans. 

A Life in Song: Note 2. 
INTUITION, RULING BY 

When one rules by intuition, the right is made right 
by one person’s thinking. That is the devil’s excuse 
for deviltry; and, where a tyrant rules, for tyranny. 

Tuition for her Intuition , 1. 
INVESTIGATION 

The time to see the feathers on a wing 
Is not the while it flies ; no, no ; and not 
While playing sleight of hand to see the fingers. 

Dante , 11., 2. 

INWARD CONSCIOUSNESS 

A force conjured 

From inward consciousness of mind and body, 

With all the doubts that shadowed thought in one, 
And nerves that stirred revulsion in the other, 

As if to make my spirit fly as far 

From fellow-spirits as those mountain hights 

Were far from all that should be in one’s home? 

West Mountain. 

INWARD VS. THE OUTWARD IN HUMAN LIFE 

Oh, there are views of life that so depend 
On inward entity at work beneath 
The whole that has been, or that can be, shown 
In what men merely see or hear or clutch, 

That each and all seem hollow as mere husks. 
To-day a man is young, to-morrow, old; 

To-day in health, to-morrow in disease; 

To-day enthroned, to-morrow in his grave; 

And not alone to man these changes come. 

The earth, our home, that so enduring seems, 

The sun and stars that light it from above 
Belong but to a camp, set up to-day, 

And, on the morrow, fell’d and flung aside. 

Idem. 


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Before the day, beyond the day, 

Above the suns that roll, 

There was a light, there waits a light 

That never leaves the soul. Cecil the Seer , n., 2, 
An eye, when seeing the sphere of being, 

May look out through the senses, or else look in; 

But looks each way, toward a different goal, 
Toward hell through senses and heaven through soul. 
Who searches without, and not within, 

He thinks the good far off that is near; 

And sees no heaven tho’ heaven be here. 

If that which he worship be worldly pelf, 

Oh, he knows not what souls have got 
Whose God is the God of the inward self. 

Love and Life , xxxn. 

IRELAND 

Too slowly sail'd our friend those waters o’er, 
Until one sunny morn their outlines bent 
On purple downs of Ireland’s fertile shore. 

That paradise beyond the ocean, dreary 

With endless restlessness of roll and spray, — 

Could any dream relieve the eyelids weary 

More restful than the hills encircling Queenstown 
Bay! 

Or where could fairer bands of fairies arm 

Than Spenser spied on those fair banks of Lee! 

Or how could beauty bear one other charm 

Where Lake Killamey rock’d Kate Kearney’s glee! 
Rare isle! — but ah, were nature’s gifts expended 
Ere here she reach’d the boons the soul demands? 
Or wast thou left by wealth and rank unfriended, 

To make thy sons, fled hence, all friends of other lands? 
Oh Ireland, Ireland, would some power divine 
Could point the way to free thy peasantry 
From all that fetters those proud souls of thine 
In bonds of ignorance and poverty ! 

Yet still hope on! For thee, tho’ progress falters, 
The light shall come for which thy children pine, 
Which long on other lands’ less favor’d altars 

Has fanned the brightest life from hearts less warm 
than thine. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


203 


Past leaden Dublin and her silvery bay 
The traveller trod the lowly banks of Erne ; 

Then dream’ d in Londonderry of the day 

When Walker’s breath made hope extinguish’d 
burn; 

Then climb’d the Giant’s Causeway, thrill’d with 
thinking, 

How round those cliffs like Coliseums grand, 

Once o’er the ships of Spain’s armada sinking, 

His wave-swept organ roar’d its Irish reprimand! 

A Life in Song: Serving , xxx-xxxiii. 

JAIL 

One should always fear the hand 
That taps a leaking jail to flood its faction. 

Who breaks one law may live to break another. 

Dante , 1., 2. 

You 

Will have your crew; for they have found a source 
Beyond exhausting. 

.... What is that? 

.... The jail, 

Which, like an Arab-shirt turned inside out, 

Will shake its lice upon you. Columbus , 111., 1. 
jar of life {see worry) 

’Tis not the rolling of the years that leaves men 
oldest; but their jar. A few find places made for 
them; but some are never placed, and all the tally of 
their score is marked by scratches kept upon them- 
selves. A boy that life has knocked about is older, 
sometimes, than a gray-beard. 

The Little Twin Tramps , 11. 

JEALOUSIES 

But soon, like worms that would not wait for death, 
Fear-fretted jealousies clung round the form 
Of dying hope. Ideals Made Real , xxv. 

jealousy {see envy) 

Love, if shorn of jealousy, 
Drops half its charms, like maids whose locks are 
clipped, 

And better might be boys, or bald-head-babes. 

The Aztec God , 11. 


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Chewing on the cud of jealousy 
Is not a pleasant practice for one’s friends. 

For though you give them naught to work upon, 

So much the more the grinders work away 
And grind themselves the sharper, — ay, and grind 
The words that pass them too — made sharp as 
arrows 

To pierce the soul they hit. Cecil the Seer , hi., i. 

You, you have genius, brains; 
And those without them must get even with you, 

If not by higher then by lower means. 

You are original and they derived; 

And thought full-centered in itself, owns not 
A parentage that puts another first. 

Columbus , I., 3. 

Who wants 

To blacken Spain with shade from Genoa? 

Idem , v., 1. 

.... Of all inane performances, the worst is trying 
to call back a wandering love by sending out a messen- 
ger disguised in robes of hatred, as the jealous do. 

The Two Paths , 11. 

JEW 

Might not His will, 

Intent on purposes He would fulfil 

Through human means, at first selections make, 

And guard the truth, — not wholly for the sake 
Of Israel ; nor for an exclusive cause, — 

By one peculiar people’s life and laws? 

And where in all of history, tho’ one traces 
Amid all kinds of castes and clans and races, 

Is ever found a stabler element? — 

Of all the men against mutation bent, 

In spite of court or church or sword or flame, 

But one, the Jew, forever stays the same. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xxvn. 

If Jews, who read His law and sacrificed, 

Were saved by faith in Him; the uncircumcised 
With faith in Him would scarce unheeded go, 
Because they but the higher law could know. 

Idem , xxviii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


205 


JOBS, BAD 

Bad jobs are near their best 
When nearest ended. The Aztec God , iv., 1 . 

JOKE, RECEIVING ONE 

There is only one way in which to receive a 
joke, and not be hurt by it. One must himself 
be able to make light of it. 

What Money Can't Buy , I. 

JOURNEYING, AS REVEALING CHARACTER 

Our natures are much like buckets — slop over 
the most when jolted. And what jolts more than 
a journey? No wise man swallows his physic 
until he has had it well shaken. 

The Ranch Girl , 1. 
joy {see enjoyment) 

Heaven would let the devil never 
Rile clear springs that gush and ever 
Thus refresh our faint endeavor. 

Our own spirit, when too near it, 

Taints the good that comes to cheer it : 

We debase until we fear it, 

Joy that was not meant to curse us, 

But to nerve us and to nurse us. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxiv. 

JOY IN GREAT THINGS 

The great things in the world are very few ; and those 
that find their joy in them alone can find but little 
joy in anything. The Two Paths , hi. 

JUDGE 

A good judge is a man whose judgments you 
Approve. Cecil the Seer , 1. 

JUDGMENT, MEN PRAISED FOR 

Humph! I have found 

The men most praised for judgment are the men 
Most echoing others’ judgments. Thus, forsooth, 
They make their own appear approved by all. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 

JUSTICE 

When mercy fails 
The cause is lost that does not call on justice. 

Columbus , v., 1. 


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Justice due to each 
Never can be gain’d, till each is free to claim his due 
in speech. A Life in Song: Watching , xxi. 
JUSTICE, NOT INVOLVING PUNISHMENT 
.... That does not give the guilty their deserts. 
.... Not punishment that often merely shifts 
one’s load of guilt on shoulders of another; not that, 
perhaps; and yet it may give justice — the only justice 
due from man to man. All justice fails that does not 
make men better. Tuition for her Intuition , hi. 
kiss {see lips) 

One kiss of yours could make the thrilling lips 
Go fluttering all day long like Cupid’s wings 
To bear sweet words of love to all they meet. 

Cecil the Seer, hi., i. 
Yet oh, a fiend too 
Might deem it sweet 

To know of a soul to his own soul true ; 

And if their lips were to meet, 

I think in the swoon that followed that kiss, 

They might die to wrong, and awake in bliss. 

Love and Life, xxvm. 

KNAVES 

Some go as far astray through ignorance 
As through ill-meaning. I would rather have 
One shrewd knave’s counsel than ten pious dunces’. 

Dante , hi., i. 

If you can call them men, — 
These creatures, whom a life-long fear of light 
Has trained for treachery stabbing in the dark; 
Sneaks, too irresolute and indolent 
To push by worthy means to worthy ends. 

But I would trust in waves adrift for hell 
As much as in a rudder held by knaves. 

Columbus, ill., i. 

KNOWLEDGE VS. FAITH {see FAITH) 

Can aught that leads our souls toward life above 
Train human worth by knowledge more than love? 

If but to know, gave souls their victory, 

Where were the need of faith, hope, charity? 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xlvii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


207 


KNOWLEDGE VS. PROPERTY 
Wherever gains depend the most on brains, to know 
may make men richer than to have. 

The Two Paths , 1. 

KNOWLEDGE VS. STRENGTH 

Strength speeds the feet, but knowledge aims the bow, 
And where the one but just begins the race, 

The arrows of the other cleave the goal. 

The Aztec God , v. 
KICKING WOMEN 

You know, I never like to see a woman kick. Her 
dress doesn’t go with it. It seems as if she ought to 
trip up ; or, if she doesn’t do it of herself, be made to do 
it by somebody else. What Money Can't Buy , 1. 

KINDNESS BRINGING PAIN 
Have you not felt how much more pain it gives, 

This pain from kindness? Love is like the sun: 

It brightens life, but yet may parch it too. 

And wind may blow, and man may screen himself ; 
And rain may fall, and he may shelter find; 

And frost may chill, and he may clothing wear ; 

But what can ward off sun-stroke? — Love, 

Its first degree may bring fertility; . 

Its next one barrenness. It lights; it blights. 

The flames of heaven, flash’d far and spent, turn smoke 
To glut the gloom of hell. Haydn , xxviii. 

KINGS 

No people crown new kings like Saul, I see, 
Till, made slaves by men, they fear them more than 
God who makes all free. 

A Life in Song: Watching , ix. 
KINGS AND PRIESTS 

But what were life without its discipline? 

And what are kings and priests for but to give it? 

The Aztec God , 1. 
labor (see work) 

Long will those controlling labor, loving money more 
than man, 

Crush as grapes are crush’d for vintage all the growth 
of all they can. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xxi. 


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LABORS 

Though hard she wrought, her touch made all her 
labors 

Like works of art. A Life in Song: Serving , xii. 

LAKES, THE ENGLISH 

Then pass’d his feet to where he spied on high 

Helvellyn’s crest wise Wordsworth’s haunts an- 
nounce ; 

Where bright, susceptive lakes like mirrors vie 
To swell the charms of else unrivall’d mounts; 

And sudden brooklets, purling each a story, 

Dash down each ledge, and dodge through every 
brake, 

From peaks like broken fragments dropt from glory 
Whose heaven-trail’d clouds will not their skylike 
cliffs forsake. 

A Life in Song: Serving, xxxvm. 

LANGUAGE VS. ACTIONS {see WORDS) 

Mere lips can form our words; our actions are con- 
formed to head and heart. Men hear our language, 
but our life they heed. No testimony ever could seem 
weaker because of cords that bind the soul to it. 

The Two Paths , 11. 
LAUGHTER {see RIDICULE) 

The best of physics 
For seriousness is laughter. Where is bile, 

Well tickled throats will throw it up. 

Columbus, ii., 2. 

A fount of laughter now that sprang within, 
O’er-rill’d her lips and rippled round her guise, 
The very train’s hem shaken by the flow. 

Ideals Made Real, xxiv. 

Charmed at this, I bent me nearer; but dismay! off 
dodged the toy, 

Shaken like a note of laughter from the bounding 
breath of joy. 

“Cruel thing,’’ I cried, provoked then; “weazen’d 
witchery of delight, 

Far too fine for eyes to find you, why should you have 
crossed their sight!” 

A Life in Song: Dreaming, xxii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


209 


A man who loved a “yes,” but dared say “no”; 
Strict, yet with smiles; and gay yet earnest too. 

’T was said his life had weather’d many a blow; 
Still was it staunch : when gales of laughter blew, 

To hold one’s own with him was more than most could 
do. Idem, Daring , lii. 

LAW MADE FOR DEEDS NOT MOTIVES 

.... We only meant 

.... The laws are made for what men do, not 
what they mean to do. No law could ever find that 
out. The Two Paths , 111. 

LAW NO CURE FOR DEVILTRY 
No law 

Can legislate the devil out of life. 

The Aztec God , iv., 1 . 

LAW, TAKING IT INTO ONE’S OWN HANDS 

The man who tries to take the law into his own hands 
is tackling what is larger than himself, and it may 
throw him. The Two Paths, hi. 

LAWLESSNESS 

In lands where law supports the right, to seek 

To rise by breaking legal barriers 

Is worse than climbing up a dizzy stair 

By leaning on a broken bannister. Dante, 1., 2. 

LAWS 

Would God we all could free ourselves from laws; 

But half our lives we spend in learning them; 

And half in learning how to love them then. 

And but in souls that learn life’s laws by heart, 

Has wisdom, so it seems, a sway complete. 

Ideals Made Real, xxih. 

.... You sent Bill Jones to jail. 

.... He broke the laws. 

.... And what of that? 

.... Why, man, the laws are rails that keep 
the world’s great train of civilization on the track. 
You break them, and you ditch the train, check 
progress, baffle enterprise, and maim or kill the 
passengers. 

.... It is the laws are maiming us. 


14 


210 


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.... Then change them. You’ve the right. 
That’s why I like this country. 

The Little Twin Tramps , hi., 2. 

LAWS, APPLY TO OUTWARD NOT INWARD LIFE 
.... No cruelty is too incongruous to cap what 
rests on fundamental error. The error of herself and 
kind is this, — the notion that a man-made outward 
law — law made by government — can reach and rule, 
not outward deeds alone, but inward moods. You 
grant this, law can be responsible for what men do, 
and also what they may do. 

.... Then law could punish both for crimes found 
out, and for such things as some one had imagined. 

.... Of course it could; and so could be unjust. 
The object of a law, when wise and just, is this, — to 
keep down outward wrong, promote sobriety and 
honesty 

.... But how about reforms? 

.... They flourish when you get the right condi- 
tion, — outward peace. Get that, and then, in part 
because of this condition, but never due to law except 
in part, men’s minds can hear and serve that still small 
voice to which all true advance in home, school, shop, 
asylum, hospital, or social life is really due. 

Tuition for her Intuition , I. 

LAWS, DETERMINED BY PUBLIC SENTIMENT 
Where did you learn that all the people make the 
laws; or that the women have no share in making 
them? All the laws, I know, are made by legislators, 
or congressmen, who represent the people. Nor do 
they represent the thoughts alone of men who vote, 
but public sentiment, including thoughts of mothers, 
daughters, wives, impressed in home, school, church, 
society, on men whose interests are the same as theirs, 
and, touched upon their sympathetic side, may be 
more loyal than if voted for. 

Tuition for her Intuition , I. 

LEADER 

The wind swept toward him, and the sunlight glanced 
From his bright armor, but the smoke and dust 
Hid all his comrades in a train august 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


211 


Trailed from him, as in splendor he advanced. 

We deemed him leader, yet he merely chanced 
To be where all things round him could adjust 
To his position wind and sun, and thrust 
On him a prominence naught else enhanced. 

Oh blame not wind or sun, nor envy him! 

What though the world too highly rate his worth? 
Who, who, for this, would choose a r61e so mean, 

So distant from the clouds that always dim 
The central fight? — It is one law of earth 
That godlike leaders work, like God, unseen. 

The Leader. 

A leader, if he lead not, shames his birthright. 

The Aztec God , n. 

LEADER IN THE CAUSE OF TRUTH 
He who leads men up, himself must mount 
Where he appears above them. 

.... How and where 

He mounts, depends on that in which he leads. 

A leader in the truth would better kneel 
Upon the footstool of a throne, than sit 
Upon it, crowned by falsehood. Cecil the Seer, i. 
LEADERS 

The greatest victory may be quickest won; 

And they who happen to be in the lead 
Are hailed as leaders, and the rest as led. 

But, oh, the work, ere fighting had begun! 

The drill! the foresight! — Well, some men succeed, 
And some do not, and soon will all be dead. 

The Chance that Comes to Every Man. 
LEADING, AND BEING LED BY, A LIFE 
I fear that, by-and-by, you may become a mere 
machinist, mesmerized by watching mere wheels 
that whiz and whirl till you forget the work that they 
should further. We men talk of leading such and 
such a life, but life is far too large for any man to 
lead. He binds himself to it, and it leads him. 

The Two Paths , I. 
LEARNING (see KNOWLEDGE) 

Long will those controlling nations fear, if learning be 
dispers’d, 


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Men who serve them like the brutes will learn to know 
themselves accurst. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xxi. 

LETTER OF THE LAW 

.... Did one merely waive 

The letter of the law, what could be harmed? 

.... One’s conscience, if he went against the law, — 
One’s heed of right. Cecil the Seer , I. 

LETTER VS. SPIRIT 

But I, though yielding to her, as it seem’d, 

Made loose the letter for the sake of spirit ; 

Nor promised aught. Ideals Made Real , lx. 
liars {see truth) 

“The young — the prejudiced” — 
“For their sake,” said he, “wisdom may be wise 
In what it screens from folly. — Yet you know 
The crime of Socrates, — ‘corrupting youth’? 

The tale is old; this lying world wants liars, 

But what of that? The Christs lie not: they die.” 

Haydn , xxvil. 

liberty {see freedom and mob) 

You fear that skies aglow with liberty 
Attend some sun that sets in anarchy. 

Alas, too often men mistake the light 
Of coming day for that of coming night. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xliv. 
Those yet possess heaven’s liberty, 

Whose minds are not in slavery. 

Idem , Doubting , xxi. 

Live self, but live not for self. Not for one, 

For all of us the truth brings liberty; 

For our own spirits, when we serve the right, 

Free wishes, hearts, and hands ; for others charity. 

Idem , xli. 

LIBERTY, DIVINE 

Far above I saw a King, whose glory crown’d him like 
the sun, 

While, more fair than stars, his people circled round 
the royal one. 

Where they moved, as he directed, came no hint of 
hindrancy. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


213 


Every pathway opening outward led along unendingly. 
There anon, full plenty waited, wells of joy that might 
be quaff’d, 

While their depths with scarce a ripple, clos’d above 
each long deep draft. 

And the people in the shadow far below that realm 
of light, 

Crush’d by burdens, lying prostrate, — this was what 
had lured their sight ; 

This was what, from every lip, had roused the cry for 
“Liberty,” 

Right in deeming its possession would fulfil their 
destiny. A Life in Song: Watching, xn. 

lie ( see truth) 

Every well compounded lie 
Mixes truth to please the truthful with the false to 
poison by. Idem, ix. 

LIFE 

Life is a mystery, mystery bound. 

Above or about us no rest is found. 

Our past is a dream of the soul’s dim home; 

Our future a scheme for the mist and the foam. 
The winds drive us on; we shudder but steer; 

We tack for safety, we drift in fear; 

We cry for help and a helper, but none 
Will answer our cry; we struggle alone. 

If our landing, indeed, were near some light 
To signal the harbor were now in sight. 

Be alert, my soul, nor ever a ray 

Let gleam unused when the gloom gives way. 

No doubt or danger can ever dispense 
With a sigh or a sign for spirit or sense. 

Love and Life, 1. 

Life is a mystery, mystery-bound. 

Above or about us no rest is found; 

But, center’d in every cycling change, 

If one hope draw us, wherever we range, 

Then must it be that the soul inclined 
To merely an earthly love must find 
With each new light 
That cheers the sight 


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The shaft of a corridor stretched afar 
To where the glories of all love are, — 

A shaft to whiten and brighten the way 
To a hall and home where ends the day, 

And heaven and earth, life's groom and bride, 
Shall gather their children, trained and tried, 
And those that have learned 
What faith has earned, 

Shall sleep the sleep of all the blest 
And dream the dreams of an endless rest. 

Idem , lx. 

LIFE BEYOND THIS LIFE {see HEAVENLY and SPIRIT) 
Oh, if there be laws that faith can trust, 

High laws that lighten all things unjust, 

What spheres for dreaming and doing must lie 
In airs not domed by a mortal sky! 

What fulness of living must life contain 
Where losing one’s life on earth seems gain! 

Idem , vm. 


LIFE, HUMAN 

You know 

What human life is? — all a fight of soul 
To keep the body sweet, — a fight a bird 
Or beast knows nothing of. A babe when bom 
Is dipped in water; every following day 
Is dipped again. If not, ere long will come 
Disease and death, and, when a mortal dies, 

• His fellows all thank heaven that they have hands 
To keep the fight up for him; for, if not, 

Be he not burned or buried in a jiffy, 

The air of heaven may find the spirit sweet, 

But not the air of earth — pugh! — well he left it! 

The Aztec God , iv., I. 

LIFE, OF THE SPIRIT {see SPIRIT) 

Life’s greatest gain is life itself ; 

And life, though lived in matter, is not of it; 

Not of the object that our aims pursue, 

Not of the body that pursues it, not 
Of all the world of which itself and us t 

Are parts. Nay, all things that the eye can see 
Are but vague shadows of reality 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


215 


Cast on a frail environment of cloud, — 

But illustrations of a general trend 
Which only has enduring entity, 

And is, and was, and always must be, spirit. 

Berlin Mountain . 

LIGHT 

But once for all 

Can dawn a day like this. 

And those who will not use their light 
Will all life’s glory miss. Ethan Allen . 
Too few were they to brave a fort 
Well mann’d at every gun; 

Yet those who slight the light of stars 
But seldom see their sun. Idem. 

LIGHT, HUMAN AND DIVINE 
Let no one take the lamps men hang at night 
For stars that never leave the upper air; 

Or think a dawn worth while comes anywhere 
Except where skies and sunlight bring the sight. 

Sense and Soul. 

The worth of a diamond is measured by the quan- 
tity and quality of the light emitted by it. The worth 
of an object of perception is measured by the quantity 
and quality of “that light which never was on sea or 
land,” — in other words, by the amount and character 
of thought and emotion which it awakens. 

Painting , Sculp, and Arch, as Rep. Arts , xm, 

LIGHT OF LIFE 

Like lesser lights this light of life is nigh 
To see by, not to handle, lest we die. 

And while it makes the paths before us bright 
*T is our work to advance from sight to sight. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xxxvm. 

LIGHT, THE, OF CHILDHOOD 

Were we to lose our little leaping light, with burning 
cheeks and sparkling eyes, we all of us should be in 
darkness. On Detective Duty , I. 

LIGHTS 

Ah me ! how strange ! — 

How the lights we carry with us make the scenes about 
us change! A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxxix. 


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LIGHTNING 

Each fearful time this lid of heaven is lifted, 

The rays pour in and focus here on us. 

They axle here the foes’ near wheeling lines, 

Ay, draw them like a whirlpool to its vortex. 

The Aztec God , I. 

There is not a tree 

Or leaf, or trunk, but what, to point us out, 

These fiery fingers of the storm would dash 
Aside to ashes — fume — thin air. Idem. 

LIKE 

Men judge of us by standards in themselves; 

And so like us when they see us like them. 

Columbus , ii., I. 

LIMBS 

Note you his graceful limbs, and how 
He poises at the waist, as if about 
To leap to some fair realm of beauty which 
His flesh enrobes but cannot realize! 

Dante , I., 2. 

LIMITATIONS, WOMEN’S 

Women’s limitations — children’s too, as everybody 
knows, and men’s as well — are just the things that 
make them most attractive. If it were not for limits, 
there could be no outlines; if no outlines, then no 
beauty, in fact no individuality of form or character. 
What charms in each comes from the bounds in which 
kind heaven confines it. 

Tuition for her Intuition , I. 

.... But mama says by women’s limitations men 
mean our weaknesses. 

.... What then? We all like best those weak 
enough to let us help them. Idem. 

LIMITS FOR HUMAN THOUGHT 

All brains with limits are what polyps own, 

You think? — Ours too fit forms whose grasp can never 
Outreach the touch of short tentacula. 

Dante , it. 2. 

LIMITS IN EXPERIENCE 
You think that one small man’s experience 
Embraces in its clasp the whole broad earth? — 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


217 


Nay, it is finite. Every path has limits. 

Climb up to mountain-tops, you turn away 

From flower and verdure, spring and warmth, to dwell 

With rock and weariness and thirst and chill. 

The Aztec God , 111. 
line, army’s ( see snake) 

Then, down the hunter’s trail, our line 
Wound on as winds a snake, 

And, late at night, prepared to spring, 

Lay coil’d beside the lake. Ethan Allen. 
LINES AND OUTLINES 

You have your pencil — still can draw 

.... . Yet not 

The outlines I had hoped. There looms a face 
With more care-lines upon its wrinkled brow 

Than e’er I blacked a map with 

Columbus , 1., 2. 

lips ( see kiss) 

And if but once, as I grew more bold, 

Her lips in the bowl of their beauty should mould 
A word of love, or should seal my bliss 
On lips that were burning to feel her kiss, 

My spirit, I think, would bound so high, 

’T would be translated nor need to die. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xili. 
And full red lips, through which flow’d soft and low 
Words richly color’d by the warmth within. 

As was the face that flush’d in uttering them. 

A Life in Song: Note v. 

And from his lips that have not lost the tint 
Of daybreak yet, there breathe forth sweeter sighs 
Than morning air brings when it drinks the dew — 
Ay, ay, than morning air brings when it rings 
With all the choruses of all the birds. 

The Aztec God , 111. 

A tale, strain’d sweeter through those lips aglow 
Than sunset music. Ideals Made Real , ix. 

LITERATURE AND LEISURE 

.... What literary men need most is leisure ; and 
what brings leisure in the world is wealth. Had I the 
wealth for it, I should endow, not colleges, but rather 


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college men, and hope that, when relieved from outside 
pressure, their inward promptings would reveal them- 
selves. 

.... Why so? 

.... Because these promptings are the sources in 
souls of almost everything on earth that changes what 
is base because of soil, to what is beautiful because of 
spirit. The Two Paths, I. 

LITERATURE AND SOCIETY 

One has to build up brain work on body work. To 
give the head heat, you must make the heart beat. To 
become a social force, our literary outlet must connect 
with a social inlet. What Money Can't Buy, III. 

LITERATURE VS. ORATORY 

Nor would I bide content with utter’d words. 

Too often, these, when widest welcomed, wake 
But echoes brief as breath from which they spring. 

I craved the mission less of roaring waves 
Than of the rare wrought shells that, evermore, 
When storms are gone, suggest their living presence. 

Ideals Made Real, lxv. 

LITTLE STEPS TOWARD WRONG 

.... That last was but an accident. 

.... It always is. Yet paths that lead to it are 
very slippery; and those that enter them must risk the 
ending. The little first step in the path of wrong is like 
the little first step of the fox that springs the trap that 
catches him. So little, you wouldn’t think it could be 
fatal, no! The Two Paths, ill. 

LITTLE THINGS, SOURCES OF TROUBLE 

Usually little things bring the most unexpected 
trouble. There is nothing except air inside a rubber 
ball. But if you play with it too recklessly, it is more 
apt than anything of which I know to bound back and 
hit yourself. Where Society Leads, I. 

littlest ( see ridicule) 

The littlest diamond in this ring I wear 
Is better for my humble, human use, 

Than a whole world of dust whirled in a star 
Set in an orbit out beyond my reach. 

Cecil the Seer, I. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


219 


LIVELY AND RISKY VS. SAFE AND PLEASANT 

.... Old friends are like old horses. When too 
old, are never very lively. 

.... When too lively, are never very safe. 

.... Without its risks, the game of life would not 
be so exciting. 

.... Without exciting, it might be more pleasant. 

The Two Paths , iv. 

LIVES 

All lives are summers, veiled at either end 
In shadows of the spring and autumn storms. 

We pass from tears of birth to burial; 

And in the brief, bright interval between 
There comes anon the fevered flush of life, 

Then paleness, then the fevered flush of death. 
Men leap and laugh, and then lie back and cough, 
Both but hysterical, betwixt the two, 

Warring for power that more of war must keep, 
Pushing for place that prisons those who seize it, 
Kneeling for love to tramp on when they get it, 
Their little rest is large-brought weariness, 

And what they wish for most is mainly death. 

The Aztec God , 1. 

Our lives are vapors forced to roam, 

Of sun and storm the prey; 

But cling like mists, with hills their home, 
Together while they may. 

Our lives are vapors, whirled through skies, 
Where some by storms are torn, 

And some the sunlight glorifies, 

And some to heaven are borne. 

Our lives are vapors wrecked and lost. 

None sail their journey through. 

Ere long behind some blow that tost, 

Will naught be left but blue. 

The Ranch Girl , iv. 

LIVES, ALIKE 

.... All lives are much alike. — 

.... How so? — 

.... All thorns or roses, if you please, 

Grown on the self-same bush. 


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.... Do all lives grow 

Both thorns and roses? 

.... Yes, we show the thorns 

To those that try to pluck us for themselves; 

The roses to the ones that let us be. 

The Aztec God , I. 

LOCKS, WHITE 

Nor did white locks about his brow attest 
How rays of ghost-land’s light had touch’d its coming 
guest. A Life in Song: Daring , XI. 

LOGIC 

When mortals climb a path to truth unseen, 
They feel their way along the links of logic. 

Dante , II., I. 

And this man’s head and heart were so united, 

His thought woke passion, and his passion thought, 
His logic fired his fancy, when excited ; 

His fancy fann’d the forge wherein his logic wrought. 

A Life in Song: Serving , vm. 
.... Logic is a lance that never hits what lies 
outside its range. 

.... And is never used by a wise man except on 
what gets inside his range. 

What Money Can’t Buy , i. 

LOGIC AND LIGHT 

Not logic leads the artist on, but light. 

Ideals Made Real , xxxvn. 
LONELINESS 

And there strange faces drove my lonely thoughts 
Back into memory for companionship; 

And there imagination moved anon 
To fill the void love felt in earth about, 

Invoking fancies where it found no facts, 

Beheld an earth about that seemed bewitch’d. 

Haydn , vii. 

LONELINESS OF GREAT LEADERS 
Whoever would seek high aims 
Must oft forego all lower claims. 

Not a few there are 
Move on so far 
That never a man 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


221 


Helps on their plan, 

Nor a confidant’s voice 
Confirms their choice. 

There are years for them, when the loveliest face 
Seems only a framing wherein to trace 
A part of an interest felt in the race. 

But oh, 

Let us believe they grow, 

The farther that thus they leave behind 
The common paths of all mankind, 

The higher the sound of their spirit’s call, 

If the less to one, the more to all. 

Love and Life , xlviii. 
lonely {see alone and companionship) 

All woe is not the loud complaint that pleads 
Where startled pity weeps in sad surprise; 

Nor bliss the gorgeous guise that decks the deeds 
That win wide homage from admiring eyes. 

Nay, one may weep, despite men’s cheers too lonely, 
Because his inward spirit stays unknown: 

And smile amid dispraise world-wide, if only 

One other soul be wending heavenward with his 
own. A Life in Song: Serving , lxxviii. 

I pass’d a grove on a lowery day; 

And out through the trees there rang 
The deep clear note of a low sweet lay 
Where a lonely night-bird sang. 

I watch’d a cloud that floated away; 

And it seem’d as if bearing along 
A lark whose trills were filling the day 
With an endless flood of song. 

Then the sun burst forth; and the night-bird stopp’d 
And flew away to his rest; 

And the lark to the ground in silence dropp’d 
Where brightly shone his nest. 

Ah, better I thought to sing in the gloom 
Than never be stirr’d by the worth 
Of a beauty that never can seem to bloom 
Save over a darken’d earth. 

And better, if like a lark, to soar 
Than sink to the silent ground, 


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And tune the old sweet songs no more, 

Because one’s mate is found. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxill. 

LORDS, HUMAN 

No wonder 

These human lords combine 
The masses’ rivalling wealth to steal! 

Let them be stript, my lord may feel 
His decency divine. 

Our First Break with the British . 

loss (. see affliction and bereavement) 

Did not I know that loss and gain are both 
Sent here to aid the worth of inner traits 
And change the phases of the spirit’s growth? — 

Haydn, xxix. 

LOSS MADE GAIN 

My dear one has driven me off ; but I know 
My heart is hers, and its love will show; 

And to find a way for this will give 
My spirit an aim for which to live. 

My lips will pour into every ear 

The thought she has waked, and whoever may hear, 

While hearing an echo of life so fair, 

Will dream and live in a fairer air. 

A Life in Song: Loving, xxxiv. 

LOST, PRIDE IN WHAT IS 

How much some people do pride themselves on 
what they have lost! Perhaps they think it a reason 
why others should help them to get it back. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl, i. 

LOVE, ALLOWING IT EXPRESSION 
No life could so be cleansed, — by wringing thence 
The blood that warms the heart ; no face made pure 
By turning pale the blush of beauty cast 
By shadows where sweet love goes in and out. 

Ideals Made Real, LXiii. 
LOVE, AND FAITH {see FAITH) 

True love forever fulfils the ideal 
Of faith, that in loving, can love to kneel. 

Love and Life, xxxiv. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


223 


LOVE AND HEAVEN {see HEAVEN) 

If heaven indeed have naught to do 
With love, then let my soul, 

Accepting earth as its master too, 

Play out the curse of its r61e; 

Ay, play for a pawn without a soul 
Instead of a god-like queen — 

For the grace of a crafty self-control, 

Or a face like a painted screen. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxi. 
LOVE AND SINGING 
There let sweet love a pair ensnare 
With dainty dreams of visions fair, 

Wherein, like wings athrob the air, 

Rare wedding bells are ringing. 

Then, stirr’d by moods that move the heart, 
What tunes upon the lip will start, 

As if true love could not impart 

Such sweets except through singing! 

A Song on Singing . 
LOVE, AS A RULER {see SERVICE) 

If ever the mind to faith be brought, 

Is it love that shall rule the inward thought? 

Is it love that shall rule the outward life 
And crown both source and sum of strife? — 

Is it only that which springs from the heart 
That can ever impart 
What fills the veins with vigor infused 
And thrills the limbs with strength to be used? 
Is it only this that can ever fulfill 
The way of the world’s Creator’s will, 

And thus create 
That heavenly state 

For which men work the while they wait? 

Love and Life 1 lviii. 

LOVE AS THE PRINCE OF ILL 

The Prince of 111 
Came oft robed like an angel of the light; — 
Why not like love? — Haydn , xxx. 

LOVE AS THE SOURCE OF LAW {see PRIEST) 

And what are the laws for word or deed 


224 


A POETS CABINET 


Of the priest whose ministry all will heed? 

Oh, what but laws of that in the soul 
Which starts the life that the laws control? 

Ah me, if to love we owe life’s giving, 

It must be love that rules right living! 

Love and Life , xliii. 
LOVE, DEAD YET ALIVE 
Love at times may prove a treasure even dead, 

If dead enough in spirits yet alive. 

Ideals Made Real , lxv. 

LOVE DECEIVED 

Should some red thunderbolt from sunlight burst 
And burn all torturing blindness through my eyes, 
The night came less foretoken’d! I, who dream’d 
That here I gazed on truth, here bent these knees 
Upon the very battlements of heaven, — 

I to be tript thus from my dear proud trust, 

Sent reeling down by such foul-aim ’d deceit! — 
Strange is it if my jolted brain should slip 
The grooves of reason? — if I rave or curse? — 

You, who had known my heart, and after that, 

And after I had warn’d you of the thing, 

And simulating all the while such love, — 

You, vowing to abjure me! more than this, 

To-day with such cold-blooded, soulless tact, 
Soft-stealing, through the door-ways left ajar, 

Within the inmost chambers of my heart, 

To snare, — as though the victim of a cat 
That could be play’d with, trick’d with, kill’d, castoff, — 
This heart of mine which, as you might have known, 
Was throbbing but to serve you! — Yes, once more, 
You gain your end! Once more, your wish is mine. 
How can I love? — God help me! — Go you free. 

Haydn , lii. 

LOVE, DREAMING OF 

Where, like a child and lover both united, 

He dreamt of love, yet woke and thought real love 
the best. A Life in Song: Serving , xix. 

LOVE, DRIVEN 

Love, if driven, is only driven away. 

Midnight in a City Park. 



Would only crave, 

When we have so much else in sympathy, 
That holy state where two souls, else at one, 
Would both be God’s. 


See page 28 q . 



SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


225 


LOVE, EARTHLY 

If in the spheres of life on high, 

The fadeless growth of each bright year 
Unfold but that whose germs are here, 

What good do they gain on earth who die, 

And let the love of earth go by? 

A Life in Song: Loving , IX. 
LOVE, EARTHLY, RENEWED IN HEAVEN 
Why, when you speak, your voice the echo seems, 
Of some familiar strain, with which all sounds 
That ever I thought sweet were in accord. 

And when my dimmed eyes dare to face your own, 
Each seems a sky within which is inframed 
A world that holds my lifetime; and the light 
Beams like a sun there, scattering doubt and gloom. 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2. 
LOVE, ENOUGH FOR 
Enough to love, — 

.... What holds enough 

For that? 

.... Enough, 

To make his presence here a boon to me; 

To make his wishes a behest for me; 

To make me feel an instinct seeking him, 

And, finding him, a consciousness of all. 

Hadyn , xxi. 

LOVE, ETERNAL AND INFINITE 
True love has life eternal, infinite. 

Complete within itself, and craving naught, 

It needs no future far, nor outlet vast, 

Nor aught to feel or touch in time or space. 

A sense within, itself its own reward, 

It waits not on return. For it, to love 

Is better than to be loved, better far 

To be a God than man. Haydn , xiii. 

LOVE, ETERNITY OF 

Love is of eternity, and knows 
No youth, no age; — is like the air of heaven 
That tosses in its play the dangling fringe 
Athrill with grace about our outward guise, 

And runs its unseen fingers through our hair, 
is 


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A POETS CABINET 


And brushes to a glow our flushing cheeks, 

But has more serious lasting moods than these. 

It is the substance of the breath we breathe 
That keeps the blood fresh, and the heart in motion; 
And, e’en when these give out, it still is there 
To buoy us up and bear on high the spirit. 

Cecil the Seer, hi., I. 

LOVE, EVIDENCES OF 

Now say you never saw the sea, for waves; 

Or stars, for twinkling; or the trees, for leaves; 
But tell me not, you never saw the heart 
That bosom heaves; nor ever saw the play 
Of faith and freak within that twinkling eye; 

Nor ever saw the spirit when the smile 
That breaks in laughter shakes the form aside. 

Ideals Made Real , LV. 

LOVE, EXCLUDING SYMPATHY WITH ONE’S AIMS 
Our youth knew love was no love, that loved not 
What made his life worth living. 

A Life in Song: Daring , lxvi. 

LOVE, EXPRESSED (see WINNING LOVE) 

Again my arms were round that neck; 

And cheek to cheek without a check 
Our souls had met. O Love, long cold, 

What frame could hope to feel, when old 
And numb from long bound loads of pain, 

Such warmth and life thrill every vein ! 

My Dream at Cordova. 

LOVE, FIRST 

There dawns, transfiguring earth and skies, 

A day in the light of which faith may be sure 
What power makes all life be and endure. 

It comes, when, filling with hope, we rise 
Redeemed in soul by the Spirit of Truth; 

And it comes with assent that glorifies 
A soul that has won the love of its youth. 

Ah, never the trills 

Of the birds were half so thrillingly sweet; 

Nor ever the rills 
Rolled on so clear at the feet. 


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The leaves are all flowers, 

And crystal all showers. 

Through the clouds the green hills loom, as grand 
As the nearing shores of a spirit-land; 

And the lights of the stars gleam down thro* a soul 
That heaves like a wave of the infinite whole. 

We float and fuse in the fragrant air; 

We fade from ourselves; we die to all care. 

Ay, she that is ours in that moment of bliss 
Brings all immortality, worth not this. 

Nay, nay, we have gain’d the life above. 

Who dares to deny it to our first love? 

Love and Life , xxi. 

Nothing in the world is so beautiful, so blissful, 
so life-inspiring, as is love when it first opens in the 
heart; but, ah, when it appears, it must be plucked by 
him for whom it ripens. If not, why, then, in a little 
time it turns to rot — and oh, the loathsomeness of 
that which might have been so sweet if taken in its 
prime ! Where Society Leads , ill. 

LOVE IN THE YOUNG 

I mused of other days; 

How once, and at the merest hint of love, 

My younger blood, like some just conquering host 
That trembling hope bears on, would bound through 
veins 

That thrill’d and thrill’d while shook each trodden 
pulse; 

How, hot as deserts parch’d by swift simoons, 

And wild as forests fell’d by sudden blasts, 

My frame would glow and bend at every breath 
That tidings bore me of the soul I loved. 

How then had love been tamed ! 

Ideals Made Real , lix. 

Then, with nobler cause, 
More nobly moved, I mourn’d that older love. 

It aye had come from regions far and pure, 

From sacred heights of dream-land and desire, 

And trailing light like Moses from the mount, 

With one hand clasping mine, one pointing up 
To something earthly, yet more near the sky. 


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It aye had thrill’d the throbbing veins it near’d 
And made my brow flush proudly as the boor’s 
When king’s hands knight him, and he bears away 
Ennobled blood forever. — My mood though — 

This lax-limb’d, loitering, sisterly regard, 

So cold, so calm, so cautious, — what was this? — 
To call it love my spirit could have swoon’d, 
Shrunk like some parent’s when he first has found 
His fair babe’s brain to be a gibbering blank. 

Idem. 

LOVE, IRRADICABLE 

She thinks my nature water. I did once ; 

As each new face looked love upon its depths, 

I thought they might be filled with that; but, ah, 
My heart is like a photographer’s glass 
Whereon the image once impressed remains ; 

And Celia’s face is always framed in Faith’s. 

I fear I love the picture for the frame. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., I. 

LOVE, ITS DOUBLE SOURCE 
Love is the flame of a fire divine 
Lit and fanned on an earthly shrine. 

Heaven and earth both claim it their own. 

Why should either let it alone? 

Why should the earth not strive to show 
That all of its traits belong below? 

Why should the heaven be loathe to try 
To prove that they all belong on high? 

For the most of us men, betwixt the two, 

The only things that are left to do 

Are to grieve that the one has lowered our love, 

Or to mourn that the other has borne it above. 

Life and Love , xxv. 

This love, in morals based on faith in man, 

And in religion on our faith in God, 

Seems, in its essence, an experience 

Not wholly feeling, yet not wholly thought, — 

Not all of body, yet not all of soul, 

Of what we are or what we are to be, — 

But more akin to marriage, within self, 

Of our two separate natures, form and spirit. 


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God meant them to be join’d: when wedded thus, 
One rests content, the other waits in hope. 

Haydn , xlix. 

LOVE, ITS ULTIMATE CONSUMATION 
When souls touch souls, they touch the springs of life; 
For them the veils of sense are drawn aside, 

Are burn’d away in radiance divine, 

The while their spirit’s contact starts afresh 
The electric flash that scores new glory here, 

And lights the lines of being back to God. 

Then, with their whole existences renew’d, 

Far up these lines, the souls that thus commune, 
Discern anon that sacred home on high, 

Where boundless rest is blest by boundless love 
And dreams the dreams of bounty absolute. — 

They find that home, whence issue floods of light 
Which, flowing forth from white mysterious heights. 
Flame down and flash and burst anon in sparks 
That star the dark through all life’s firmament; — 
They find that home, whence whirl the cycles wide 
Where all the wastes of nature fuse and form, 

And all the things that thought can touch take shape. 
Until the restless wheels of matter, roll’d 
Through roadways worn to waste by speeding years. 
At last in fatal friction fire themselves, 

And light returns to light from whence it sprang. 
Through all, where souls commune with central 
love, 

They stay secure, awaiting birth or death; 

The Spring that starts the blossom blown to fall, 

Or Fall that drops the seed that springs afresh. 

They watch nor fear whatever change evolve, — 

The splendor grand of epochs borne to waste, 

The ruin wild of times that end in law, 

The monarch mail’d whose lustre dims his folk, 

The people’s guns whose echoes hush their king. 
What though dark clouds loom up and storms descend? 
True faith would not bemoan the forms they wreck; 
For forms if true are formulas of love 
That still is ardent to consume them all. 

Though lightnings thunder till they crack the sky, 
What unroofs rage leaves heaven to dome our peace. 


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The more convulsion shakes and fire consumes, 

The more of love and light may both set free; 

The earlier may they end these earthly days 
That fret our lives with flickerings vague below 
Of steadfast light in endless day above; 

The earlier may the power of hate giveaway, 

And good awake, and every path be bright, 

While hope of glory gilds the gloom on high. 

Ideals Made Real , LXXIV. 

LOVE, LOST 

.... All any life is worth 

Lies in its possibilities of love. 

.... But were love's object lost? — 

.... One cannot lose 

What is eternal. Hearts must always keep, 

If not their love, what love has made of them. 

Dante , I., I. 

LOVE, MANLY 

My soul was immature 
Romantic, young. It must be manly now. 

A man has breadth. I take it manly love 
Is love that yields most blessing to the most. 

Haydn , liv. 

LOVE, man’s RIGHT TO 

My heaven holds love. 

And what thrives there thrives here, and has a right 
To all things men can rightly let it have. 

The Aztec God , 11. 

LOVE OF WOMEN AND OF MEN 

Do you know, 

You women always will match thoughts to things? 
You chat as birds chirp, when their mates grow 
bright : 

You love when comes a look that smiles on you. 

We men are more creative. We love love, 

Our own ideal long before aught real : 

Our halo of young fancy circles naught 
Save empty sky far off. — And yet those rays 
Fit like a crown, at last, above the face 
That fortune drives between our goal and us. 

Haydn , xvi. 


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LOVE, REFINING INFLUENCE OF 
Love, rarest of passions, with burnings untold, 
Refines all the being to turn out its gold. 

One sound of their kindling, wrong hears as a knell, 
And sinks from that heaven as far as to hell 

Love and Life , xxvii. 

LOVE, RENUNCIATION OF 
Not God, — the devil — he, he rules the world! — 
Then let me rule it with him. — But no, no! — 

Oh, what a universe of agencies 

Are centered in one life that may be both 

The God and devil of the soul it loves! 

Yet wits were given one to outwit the world. 

If Celia be what I have dreamed she is, 

The world must work its work upon her will 
Without one touch of mine, or hint, or sigh, 

To make her life more tempted or less true. — 

Oh, curs&d world, in which forswearing love 
Is our best proof that we would foster it ! 

But wait! — What moves me? — Am I but a fool 
Controlled by dreams? — No, no; I had a dream; 
But this, at least, is none, — that each who aids 
An angel upward for himself prepares 
Angelic friendship ; and if there be spheres 
Where spirit can reveal itself to spirit, 

And sympathy be sovereign, there must be 
One soul supremely loved. I dreamed no dream. 
High, knightly chivalry whose love protects, 

Thy knightly honor is the sacred thing 

Of which thy pride is conscious. But — oh God! — 

To be just on the threshold of all bliss: 

And fail. — Fail? — No. Let Freeman have her now 
A few brief years. — I dream with her forever. 

Cecil the Seer , 111., 1. 

LOVE, REPRESENTATIVE 
Yet wheresoever love is roused in me, 

Each form I love shall seem a part of thee. 

No more can man or matron, maid or boy 
With coming charms excite my spirit’s joy* 

But these must find in thy fair form their birth, 
But these must gain from thy dear life their worth. 


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The light of heaven has burn’d thine image where 
My soul must evermore its impress bear. 

Naught now can come to bless my spirit’s view, 

But, where it comes, thy smiling form stands too. 
Nay more, my true one, thy soul’s flowing love 
Holds in its depths the imaged heavens above ; 

And when ’t is quaffed, and floods my being’s brim, 
The draft fits God. I feel akin to Him. 

A Life in Song: Loving , Lll. 
LOVE, RIPE 

Right love is ripe love. Life must be exposed 
In sun and storm — to frost and bruising too: 

The fruit grows mellow by and by alone. 

Haydn , xix. 

LOVE, SACREDNESS OF 
The spirit of love is far too rare 
For ever deceit or doubt to dare, — 

A hallow’d spirit whom awed delight 
Must ever worship in robes of white. 

Too oft by a touch that never was meant 
The veil of its holy of holies is rent; 

Too oft from a heedless impious tone 
Love’s glory has flown. 

The souls that together lived in light, 

They weep apart through the long, long night. 

Love and Life , xxm. 
LOVE, SECRETIVENESS OF 
The friends that in closeted hours confess 
The faith so dear 
That both possess, 

When others are near, 

Abide contented not to reveal, 

But merely to feel, 

In walking 
Or talking, 

That some one is nigh 
With a kindling eye; 

And some one exults at their well earned pride. 

To tattle of love were suicide. 

No trumpet or drumming 
Proclaims the coming 


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Of God on high to a spirit on earth. 

Then wherefore of love, if it have any worth? 

Love and Life , xiv. 
love, spiritual {see faith) 

’T is time the Spirit of the living force, 

Whose currents through the frame of nature course, 
And make the earth about, and stars above, 

The body and abode of infinite Love, 

That breathes its own breath through our waiting 
frames 

With each fresh breeze that blows, and ever aims 
Our lesser lives where all we call advance 
But plays within its lap of circumstance, — 

’T is time this Spirit should be known, in truth, 
Inspiring hope in age and faith in youth, 

And in us all that charity benign, 

Which in us all would make us all divine. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , LV. 
One talent of which love has full direction 

Finds heaven, while hate-led genius yet gropes near 
to hell. Idem , Serving , xx. 

LOVE, THE, OF A SWEETHEART 

You ask me why I love my love. 

Ah, think not love needs proving. 

She sways me like the breeze above 
That keeps the tree-top moving. 

In her fair face I find a bloom 
Life could not own without it, 

Which, like a rose that sheds perfume, 

Makes all earth sweet about it. 

In her deep eyes I see a light 
That turns her slightest glances 
To beams that guide, like stars at night, 

My life’s dark fears and fancies. 

Through her dear voice there sounds a charm 
Past music’s in attraction, 

That bids all forms of ill disarm, 

And nerves to noblest action. 

She is of all life’s hues the sun; 

Nor whiter could a dove’s be 


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Than hers to me, for all seem one, 

Because all mean she loves me. 

A Life in Song: Loving , LI. 

LOVE, THE, OF ONE SWEETHEART {see POLYGAMY) 

Is his experience then 

So strangely brilliant who is loved, forsooth, 

By one maid only? 

.... It may not be brilliant, 

But like a star in heaven it fills with light 
One point — that where the gods have placed it. 

The Aztec God , ill. 

LOVE, THE SERVICE OF {see TRUTH) 

How oft I thank’d the Power that gave me power 
To think and do for him what he could not. 

I knelt : I gave my body to his needs : 

Brain, hands, and all things would I yield to him. 
And was I not paid back? — His dear, sweet heart, 
Each slightest beat of it, would seem to thrill 
Through all my veins, twice dear when serving two. 
And this was love! You know the Master’s words, 
That they alone who lose it find their life. 

’T is true. No soul can feel full consciousness 
Of full existence till it really love, 

And yield its own to serve another’s life. 

“To serve Christ’s life,” you say? — But part of 
that 

By Christ’s humaneness is to serve mankind. 

I speak a law of life, a truth of God: 

To heaven I dare as little limit it 
As to the earth; whatever be our sphere, 

We know not life therein until we love. 

Haydn , xii. 

LOVE, THE TEST OF 

It seems to me 

That love, like light, is tested by its rays. 

The halo crowns the saints, our lights of life, 

Just as the love they shed surrounds their souls. 
Where one is God’s, the strong soul serves the weak; 
The mother yields her powers to bless her babes; 

The man his powers, for her; and Christ for all. 

Haydn , xxm. 


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LOVE VS. FRIENDSHIP 

Love reinforces our own best desires, but friendship 
often merely leaves us free to work out for ourselves 
our own salvation. The Two Paths , iv. 

LOVE, WHEN A CURSE 
Accursed love, that makes the brightest eye 
A sunglass through which heaven would wilt the soul, 
And by the very pleasure beauty gives 
Mete out the measure of impending doom. 

The Aztec God , 11. 

LOVER-FRIEND 
A sorry end 
Has the lover-friend. 

A place akin to a dog’s has he, 

Who, whenever her form may be spied, 

Deems nothing so meet for him, or sweet, 

As to snuff the halo of dust at her feet, 

And to crouch and bound and bark at her side, 
And, trembling to feel the tap of her hand, 

Be weary never 

Of springing to fetch and carry whatever 
Her face and her voice demand. 

Full many a man has found to his cost 
A master made of the maid he had lost. 

Her lover turn’d friend is one to abuse 
And cushion her sense of sovereignty, 

A man to attend her, and flirt with, and use 
To waken another to jealousy. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxvi. 

LOVER VS. HUSBAND 

Am I, think you, a man to play 
A second fiddle to your tune of love — 

With instrument all broke beyond repair, 

Make discord of the music of your life? 

I promise you to leave here. 

Cecil the Seer, 111., 2. 

LOVER, WHEN COMES HIS SWEETHEART 
All of nature with rhythmic beat 
Seem’d at one with her swaying, 

Keeping time to her fair young feet, 

The beat of her heart obeying. 


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Ah, thought I, since the world was new, 

All its whirling and humming, 

All its working, and waiting too, 

Meant that she was coming. 

A Life in Song: Loving, II. 
LOVERS 

We look’d in each other’s eyes to see 
Our dearer selves reveal’d; 

And nothing within each orb saw we 
Save too much love conceal’d. 

We rested back in each other’s arms, 

And we heard each other’s hearts, 

With music far sweeter than ever the charms 
That ever the world imparts. 

For every throb in the blood of one 
Would thrill through the other’s veins, 

And the joy of one dispel like a sun 
The night of the other’s pains. 

Discordant never in smiles or sighs, 

We wonder’d if it could be — 

Oh God, to think we were then so wise! — 

That others could love as we. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xix. 

LOVERS, A MAID’S 

My mind 

Had stumbled on the impression that a maid 
Looks on her lovers as a Toltec brave 
On scalps: she likes to see them hanging on 
Her neck — at least in presence of such mates 
As make no conquests. The Aztec God , 111. 
LOYAL 

I care not what to others 
A loyal feeling brings; 

To me it still will loyal be 
To serve the King of kings. 

The Lebanon Boys in Boston . 
LOYAL SPIRITS 
Nay, theirs are loyal spirits, 

But when the wrong is great, 

And forms of law do not deserve 


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Their soul’s allegiance, then they serve 
The spirit of the state. 

Our First Break with the British . 
LOYALTY TO PEOPLE VS. TO RULER 
In states that free men govern, loyalty may prompt 
a man, at times, to serve the people and not the per- 
sonality of one disloyal to the people, though their 
ruler. Tuition for her Intuition , 111. 

LUST 

But am I to waive a life of truth 
For a lower wish that craves 
The swine-flung husks that the world, forsooth, 
Slings those it has turn’d into slaves? 

Am I to yield the spirit’s claim 
And grip what has come to thrust 
The empty hide of a soulless frame 
At clutches of greed and lust? 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxi. 
And if no love their lust control 
Whom the rites of earth entice, 

Alas for churches that prostitute soul, 

And states that establish vice! Idem. 

LUST VS. LOVE 

I turn my back on lust 
That I may turn my face to love. 

. . . . Poor fool, 

But one life can you live, and yet you lose it! 

. ... But one love can I keep, and I shall keep it. 

The Aztec God, in. 
What? When I have let 
Their lustful kisses drain the dew of youth, 

Give her the parched and lifeless remnant? — No. 
Go take that wolf-skin from the snarling hounds 
When all the blood has been sucked out of it, 

And flesh gnawed off, and fling it, cold and limp, 
Out to another wolf panting for a mate; 

But ask me not to fling love's foul cold carcass 
Out to her arms to whom I owe my life. — 

Oh, curs&d fate! Idem. 

MAD 

Am I mad? — My sole proof that I am not, 


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A POETS CABINET 


Lies in my thinking that I may be so. — 

Humph! I will hold this thinking and keep sane; 
And if it be a cool head takes the trick, 

Will find what trick is here. Cecil the Seer , III., I. 
madness {see insanity) 

How near proud reason’s realm may be 
That fierce Charybdis-craving sea. 

That drags toward madness you and me! 

We wander toward its misty strand: 

There swells the wave; here stops the land. 
How bright the sea! how dull the sand! 

“Oh Guardian Sense,” we cry, “away!” 

We wade the surf; we feel the spray; 

We leap! — and God prolongs our day. 

Ah, Holy Wisdom, if Thou be 
The Logos from the Sacred Three, 

Who all men’s good and ill decree; 

And if the wise above us dwell, 

The unwise then — but who can tell? — 

May madness be the mood of hell, 

Where God, who ruleth, ruleth well? 

If it be true that death translates 
To other spheres the self-same traits 
Our souls acquire in earthly states; 

If it be true that after death 
The heat of some accursed breath 
Can into fever’d action fan 
All lusts that once inflamed the man, 

Till life grow one intense desire, 

A burning in a quenchless fire, 

A worm that gnaws and cannot die, 

Since worldly things no more supply 
What worldly wishes gratify, 

And flesh and blood no more remain 
To make a fleshly craving sane; — 

If then the passions, anger’d sore 
Because indulged, as once, no more, 

Rise up, and rave, till reason swerve, 

And lose command of every nerve, — 

What state can anarchy preserve? 

What state? — O Christ, I see them now — 
Those teeth that gnash! — and see why thou, 


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To save our souls from future strife, 

Didst cast out devils in this life. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xiv. 

MAID, A MODEL 

Her brilliance would not dim a rival’s eyes, 

Nor beauty shade another’s face with frowns. 

One saw in her a modest, model maid, 

A woman loved by women; and with men 
A presence, mellow-lighting like the moon. 

Ideals Made Real , xlv. 
MAID, AND A BOY 

.... They were here, alone, together, and in 
danger. It brought him very near to her. 

.... And when a boy comes near a maid just in 
her blushing bloom, she’s like a ripe red peach upon a 
branch. One touch — she tumbles. Humph! 

The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 

MAIDEN, DECEASED 

A maiden of such beauty, grace, and love, 

It were impossible to think her dead, 

And not be drawn toward beauty, grace, and love 
In their diviner aspects. Dante , 11., 1. 

MAIDENS, LOVE FOR 

“But maidens,” cried he, “are not loved like men. 
Bind beauty to their souls, then weigh the twain. 

If one weigh naught, he waives his judgment then. 
We must be practical.” Ideals Made Real , v. 
MAIDS 

Maids, like flowers, 

Are sweetest, pluck’d when in the bud? 

Haydn , xix. 

Maids, like minnows, rarely show themselves 
Till, caught and drawn from out the open sea, 
They frisk in safety in some household pond! 

Ideals Made Real , xxiv. 

The two then moving from their sister-maids, 

Like petals loos’d from roses when in bloom, 
Came forth to welcome us. Idem, xv. 

MAIDS WITH INTELLECT 

Maids 

In whose one person love so womanly 


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With intellect so manly has been join’d, 

Need not to marry for a hand or head. 

There, hearts alone can win. Bear this in mind ; 

And fan your fancy till your words grow warm, 

Ay, glow to flash the white heat of the soul ! 

Idem , xn. 

MAN 

A man alone? — And yet the moods of man 
May make men love us for our manliness, 

Who draw them, Christ-like through our sympathy, 
Toward self, — God’s image here, and thus toward 
Him. Idem, liii. 

Let ancient lore trace man’s ancestral story 
To mystic loins of superhuman birth, 

The grandest good in which our times would glory 
Is merely to inherit, at the last, an earth, — 

An earth made perfect, where converting love 
Makes each man share his heritage with each, 

And prove his faith in heaven’s pure life above 
By bringing heaven within each mortal’s reach. 

For tho’ a grander hope the soul confesses, 

So long as human nature guides its aim, 

Who learns to be a true man here, possesses 

The most that He who made man what he is can 
claim. A Life in Song: Serving , lxxxi. 

MAN-FORCE NOT MERELY BRUTE-FORCE 
.... When it comes to any traits of body, under 
them one usually surmises deeper traits. 

.... And so you see in men? — 

.... Not brute force merely, but brain force, too. 
.... It is not always shown. 

.... Not always found by those whose natures 
look for brute-force only. When our men are gentle — 
say like my self-controlled and thoughtful brother — 
we women ought to thank them, and not act like curs 
who never hint what hints of courtesy save when they 
cringe to lick the hand of cruelty. 

Tuition for her Intuition , in. 

MANAGING OTHERS 

I would not dare to mould another thus; 

Nay, though I knew that I could model thence 


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The best-form’d manhood of my best ideal. 

Who knows? — My own ideal, my wisest aim, 

May tempt myself, and others, too, astray. 

If I be made one soul to answer for, 

And make myself responsible for two, 

I may be doubly damn’d. How impious, — 

The will that thus would manage other wills; 

As though we men were puppets of a show, 

Not spirits, restless and irresolute, 

Poised on a point between the right and wrong 
From which a breath may launch for heaven or hell !— 

Haydn , xxvi. 
MANHOOD, EQUALITY OF 

Now shall all men trust in manhood, knowing all must 
read the right 

By the aid of that same spirit giving every soul its 
light. A Life in Song: Watching , xvm. 

Now shall no man lord another. God will have His 
own sweet way, 

His own Eden, where all souls may work their work 
and say their say. Idem. 

Where, O where shall trust in truth that speaks 
through manhood great and small, 

Overcome the few’s oppression by intrusting power to 
all? Idem , xxi. 

manhood’s worth 

Service done 

For manhood measures manhood’s worth. 

Her Haughtiness. 

MARRIAGE {see DIVORCE, MATRIMONY and WEDDED) 

A natural state, 

Made statelier through authority of law, 

That, otherwise, might authorize the wrong. 

Haydn , XL. 

MARRIAGE, EFFECTS OF A FOREIGN 

A foreign marriage for an American girl. The one 
thing that she is sure to do is to break off with the 
thought to which she has been trained in her own land 
too late to form connection with the thought to which 
another has been trained in another land. She is most 


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likely to remain through life a stranger in a strange 
country. Where Society Leads , I. 

MARRIAGE FOR LOVE 
.... Does Winifred love him? 

.... How can I tell? How can she tell? — No- 
body knows how a suit will fit till it has been tried on. 
Even then, especially if young, one may outgrow it. 
Young chickens have down ; old chickens have feathers. 
The down feels smooth, the feathers may scratch. 
The chicken is the same, only it has become an old 
chicken. 

.... Men have in them what chickens have not, — 
minds and souls. 

.... Have they? 

.... Some of them have, and know it. Others, 
who overlook the fact, discover it sometimes when it’s 
too late. Idem , II. 

MARRIAGE FOR MONEY 
.... The woman might have money. 

.... And I might marry her for it, eh? Yes, and 
I might murder her for it; and, if not found out, or 
not a spiritualist, have a much more pleasant time 
in the future — be rid of the embarrassment of my 
victim’s companionship. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl , I. 

MARRIAGE WITH THE UNSYMPATHETIC 

Curs&d fate! — 

This trudging on and on in paths of right, 

And knowing every pace takes one more stride 
Away from all one loves! — From all one loves? — 
No, no ; — from all that, once, one thought he loved. 
Oh, cruel customs of a cruel world, 

Which damn us for those dreams that seem to be 
Our holiest inspirations! Cruel dreams, 

That never prove delusions, till the world 
Welds bonds for us that death alone can break! 
And cruel bonds that make all happiness, 

In one so bound, impossibility, 

Unless he live a sneak’s life. Cecil the Seer , I. 

MARRIAGE WITH THE VICIOUS 
Oh, it’s not my fault that I am thinking of, not my 


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fault; it’s my foulness! Why, why, if I sent off a boy 
to act merely as a valet to a man like that, it would 
frighten me to think of the risk involved in having 
him come back into my house again; yet I, I, — think 
of it! — I have been that creature’s wife! Ugh, the 
humiliation of it all! Where Society Leads , ill. 

MARRIED WOMEN, AS CONFIDANTES OF MEN 
Men seldom take off their coats and sit down in the 
sleeves of their souls with a woman, unless she is 
married. I may see him without his coating. 

The Ranch Girl, 1. 

MARTYR 

Surely, surely, truth and justice rule the worlds; and 
cares and pains 

Which the martyr meekly suffers are not all that duty 
gains. 

Grand desires are not delusions, though one die before 
his day, 

And the soul that plann’d for manhood fall a child 
amid his play. 

Trembling through the dying whispers of the men who 
live for right 

Comes a call to nobler living than the sleep of endless 
night. A Life in Song: Watching, xxvm. 

MASK, A SYMBOL OF THE POET 

The mask is a fitting symbol for the poet, not only 
because the classic actors wore one in presenting 
tragedies and comedies, but because the poet himself 
appears in one whenever he writes objectively or 
dramatically — indeed, one could almost say, whenever 
he writes artistically. Words and deeds that would 
provoke disesteem and persecution, if employed by a 
philosopher or an essayist, can be made to fit the 
characters or situations represented in a poem or a 
novel, and never raise a protest. 

The Representative Significance of Form , xi. 

MASSES’ PRAISE OR BLAME ( See APPLAUSE) 

What care I for the masses’ praise or blame? 

But larger atoms of earth’s common dust, 

If whirled against one or away from one, 

They cannot fill or empty thus the sphere 


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Where dwells the spirit. Let them come or go. 
My soul desires not many things but much — 

Ah yes, and too much, too much, as it seems! 

Dante , I., 2. 

MATCH, A LOVE 

We two souls were fitted so 
To match each other. Here, where jars the world* 
And all goes contrary, where every sun 
That ripes this, withers that; and every storm 
That brings refreshment here, sends deluge there, 
We two, exceptions to the general rule, 

Like living miracles (is love fulfill’d 
A miracle indeed?), seem’d born to draw 
The self-same tale of weal or woe from each. 

I saw but last night, darling, in my dreams, 

Our spirits journeying through this under gloom: 
And hand in hand they walk’d; and over them, 

As over limner’d seraphs, did there hang 

A halo, love reflected. By its glow 

The gloom about grew brightness: while far off, 

In clearest lines, the path passed up and on. 

Haydn , xlviii. 

MATCH, TWO BY TWO 

We too should walk alone, or else have four, 

Or six. When two agree they make a match. 

A third is but a wedge with which to split 
The two apart. Haydn f iv.. 

mate ( see boy-friends) 

How oft with an old but strange delight, 

I awake and turn when the day grows bright; 

But O, no arm o’er my neck is thrown, 

No soft, warm breath is fanning my own. 

I feel but a draft of the passing air 

That drifts through the window to lift my hair* 

I hear but the breeze 
That is whispering where 
It plays with the trees. 

The mate of my boyhood in days long past 
I loved with a love that could not last. 

He has left me for life; 

And far away with children and wife, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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He shows not, knows not, would not crave 
The old, old love that sleeps in its grave. 

A Life in Song: Loving , vil. 

MATED 

Souls are not mated when two forms of flesh 
Join hands, or merely share each other’s arms. 

Cecil the Seer, 1. 

MATERIAL VS. SPIRITUAL AIMS 

How vain to let affections all go forth 
To things material, hard and heavy foes, 

Whose mission is to fall at once and crush, 

Or, through long labor, wear our spirits out ! 

How much more wise, behind the shape, to seek 
The substance, and, in sympathy with it, 

Learn of the life that never was created 
But all things were created to reveal! 

West Mountain . 

MATRIMONY, COMMITTING IT 

In certain circumstances matrimony is precisely 
like murder. Once committed, one’s committed for 
life; and to a prison-life at that. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl, 1. 
MEAN 

The mean are mean without meaning. 

The Ranch Girl, hi. 
MEANING, HIDDEN 

A friend can heed the meaning of our thought 
Unhelpt by word or gesture. 

The Aztec God , m. 

MEANS OF GOOD TO OTHERS 

.... Oh, no man in the world can fall so far — 
can be so weak or poor — in short, so mean — but there 
are some of us can make of him a means of good to 
others. 

.... How? 

.... Why, we can help him on — or else we can 
suggest that he help us on. On Detective Duty, 11. 

MEANT 

To God with what you meant! — 

One who has not His confidence must guess it 

Dante, 11., 1. 


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MEANT RIGHT 

When we find men saying they meant right, 

We find most others thinking they went wrong. 

Idem , 1., 2. 

MELANCHOLY 

Life has had its fill of pain; 
But the shade of melancholy clasped me to her breast 
in vain; 

Phantom-film of mortal making, why dared she to 
hide the light? — 

Scarcely had I dared oppose her, ere her form had fled 
from sight. A Life in Song: Watching , xxv. 

MELANCHOLY TEMPERAMENT, THE 

And some are born with heavy, sluggish blood, 

That will not leave the heart but keeps it weighted. 

The Aztec God , 11. 

MEMORIES 

Our homes, as we grow old, are in our memories. 
We take these with us, wherever we may go, enjoying 
there less what we see than what we seem to see. 

On Detective Duty , iv. 

MEMORIES THAT RETAIN THE UNPLEASANT 
You know there are people whose memories act like 
sinks. You may flush and flood and scrub them. 
They keep on catching and holding what only makes 
them a nuisance. The Ranch Girl , iv. 

MEMORY 

Behind it there was left a lingering light 
Pervading moods of memory like the rays 
Pour’d through a prism, wherein the commonest hues 
Will spray to uncommon colors when they break. 

Ideals Made Real, iv. 

MEMORY, OBLIVIOUS OF THE UNPLEASANT 
Our memories are kind — would rather drop their 
pen than blacken joy that is to come with grief that 
was. They let us tread the present as on a bridge that 
rests at either end upon a past and future that seem 
bright. Were this not so, were it not so upheld, 
’twould fall through gulfs of bottomless despair. 

On Detective Duty , iv. 


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247 


men {see man) 

Earth was Eden till the pair that lived there tried to 
make 

Gods of men, but only dwarf’d their heirs that curse 
at their mistake. 

A Life in Song : Watching , xvm. 
MEN, WOMEN, AND GODS 
.... You seemed in anger. 

.... So are gods at times. — 

They think of men. 

.... Of women too? 

.... Oh yes; 

Of women: — they are said to be in bliss. 

The Aztec God , iv., 1. 

MERRIMENT, RESULTING FROM NATURES NEEDING IT 
The birds that sing most are the birds whose natures 
the most need singing; and the men that make merry 
the most are the men whose natures most need a world 
that appears to be merry. The Ranch Girl , 1. 

MESSENGERS 

One may judge 

A message from its messengers. 

Columbus , v., 1. 

MESSING AND MATING 

In crowds men crave companionship with men, 
where all can throw aside, as bathers do, all thought of 
dress or consequence, and lose a sense of difference in 
the harmony of superficial but hilarious good fellow- 
ship. With women — well — most men like women best 
when most alone with them. They like the confi- 
dences half revealed, half hidden, that show the traits 
that separate souls not alike, but complementary. 
Man’s love for man may be but secular, for woman, 
sacred; yet he needs them both — men for a throng, 
and maids for t£te-a-t§tes. To mess is just as useful 
as to mate. Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 

METHODS VS. MODELS 

Good masters give us methods but not models. 

Dante, 1., 1. 

MILLIONAIRES AND INFLUENCE 

Your millionaire is like a drop cast up from the sea 


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on a sunny day, reflecting all the colors of the rainbow 
— so you think; and, to an extent, your thought is 
true. But besides this, there is something else that’s 
also true. The drop is usually dashed high up onto a 
cliff, where it stays and expires alone and useless. 
Meantime the great ocean of humanity, to live and 
work in which and with which and for which, is all 
that makes life to other men really worth the living, 
moves on to accomplish its destiny without perhaps a 
single serious contribution from himself. 

What Money Can't Buy, iv. 

MILLIONAIRES AND LONELINESS 

It’s hard to live in a world where one was meant to 
go with others and to find himself obliged to live alone 
— his purest motives misrepresented, his kindest deeds 
misunderstood, the members of his own family his 
worst enemies, and everyone to whom he feels that he 
should most like to look for an exchange of sympathy 
so situated as to think that it can’t and shouldn’t be 
given: and all this because he’s the son of a millionaire. 

Idem, hi. 

MILLIONAIRES AND PROFLIGACY 

.... Oh, you’re going in with our classmates, 
Bob Martin and Jack Sharp, eh? 

.... How so? 

.... Why, they are millionaires. 

.... And what have they done? 

.... Why, you know! Bob has written a play, 
and Jack a novel, both of them intended to show up 
the profligate lives of pleasure led by the millionaires. 

.... I haven’t read their effusions. Are they 
interesting? 

.... Well, rather! 

.... I should think they would be. Accounts of 
profligacy usually are. 

.... But these, you know, are founded on facts. 

.... On all the facts? — Anything less than all the 
truth, you know, is never the whole truth. As a fact, 
most millionaires that I know are not profligate. If 
they were, or had been for any length of time, they 
wouldn’t be millionaires. Nor are their pleasures pro- 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


249 


fligate. If they were, or had been for any length of 
time, they wouldn’t be pleasures. Idem , iv. 

MILLIONAIRES, HANDICAP OF BEING 
It’s an awful handicap to be the son of a millionaire, 
— to know you have something inside of you, and yet 
to know that everybody about supposes that all you 
have is on the outside, — that you are a make-up not of 
mind but of money. Money glitters and attracts — 
glitters for moths and attracts the mercenary; makes 
one a center of superficiality, brainlessness, selfishness, 
sordidness, sensuality. What Money Can't Buy , 11. 

MIND, CHANGING ANOTHER’S 
.... Have you or I? — has any one the right to 
turn a mind from that which its own thinking has 
reckoned wise? 

.... You would not change my mind? 

.... I would not love you if I tried to do it; for 
you yourself are what your mind has made you. 

The Two Paths , iv. 

MIND, FUNCTION OF 

A man who fails to judge the character 
Of what is promised by the character 
Of him who promises, reveals no mind; 

For mind is what connects effect and cause. 

Dante , 11., 1. 

MIND MOULDED BY ITS OCCUPATION 
When a man makes anything, he moulds not only it, 
but moulds, as well, the tool with which he makes it. 
The sharpest blade was never keen enough to keep its 
own edge, was it? — nor so dull but that a constant 
grind might sharpen it? It seems the same with 
minds. The scholar’s tools are thinking tools, and 
usually by merely thinking can unravel what is tangled 
into knots. But business friction makes the tools 
too sharp. They cut the knot without unraveling it. 
Few men who once form habits of not thinking except 
when thought is absolutely needed can rest content 
with thinking as a life-work. The Two Paths , 1. 

MINUTES 

Minutes grow the seeds from which the things that 
spring may fill eternity. On Detective Duty , 1. 


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MIRACLES 

Few things, when we turn them inside out, 

Are proved to be the miracles we thought them. 

Dante , n., 2. 

MIRE, FALLING IN 

A man may fall in such a mire that when he tries 
to clutch a thing to rise on, he only pulls down what 
may sink him deeper. The Two Paths , 11. 

MIRROR 

Ay, how often, when the light that guided us has gleamed 
within, 

We have wish'd that our reflections might enlighten 
then our kin, 

But though brighter minds might aid them, ours, at 
least, were dull as night, 

Striving ever, failing ever, half our views to mirror 
right. A Life in Song: Dreaming , ix. 

MISSION 

There can be no one, not the least of men, 

But has his mission. Half a mortal he, 

And half a spirit; half the son of earth, 

And half of heaven; it is his work divine 
To mediate for his race between the two ; 

To take the life God gave him at his birth, — 

Its germ, its growth, and all its varied fruit, — 

And offer it, like him — that greater priest 
Who offer’d more — a willing sacrifice 
Upon life’s altar, where the heaven-bom soul 
Is tested and refined by fires of earth. 

Then must he work with whatsoe’er survives, 

And show to men his preservations grand 
Of common things that they profane and slight, 
And hush their murmurs by sublime appeals 
That urge their spirits to the spirit’s best. 

Thus can he fill a worthy sphere, and be 
Earth’s humble victim, who, its prophet too, 
Reveres his life for what his life reveals. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xli. 

When all sailing is over, the shouts of a state 
That hail a Columbus may name him great. 
Before it is over, that isle of the west, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


251 


The goal of his quest, 

Is merely, for most, the point of a jest. 

Nor a few, the while he turns to his mission, 

Will deem him moved by a mean ambition. 

Ay, often indeed, the nobler the claims 
Inspiring his aims, 

The more earth deems 
They are selfish schemes 
Of a Joseph it hates for having strange dreams. 

Unveiling the Monument. 
MISSION, FINDING ONE’S 
With broaden’d means, led on to push 
Toward broaden’d purposes, I spoke and wrote; 
And found, anon, while aiding here and there 
Where aid was rare, wide opening to my view, 

A worthiest mission. Ideals Made Real , lxvii. 
I like to think this frame of mine 
Contains a spark of life divine, 

Enkindled there with some design. 

I oft have thought, there ought to be 
Some light to glow and flow from me, 

And show what all men long to see. 

A Life in Song: Doubting } III. 

MISSION OF MAN, SPIRITUAL 

There is one only mission fit for man, — 

To be a spirit ministering to spirit. 

What fits for this? — A breath of higher sky, 

A sight of higher scenes, at times, a strife 
To mount by means impossible as yet. 

What then? — Believe me that the spirit-air, 

Like all the air above the soil we tread, 

Takes to its own environment of light 
No growth to burst there into flower and fruit 
That does not get some start, and root itself 
Amid this lower world’s deep, alien darkness, — 

No spirit uses wings in heaven that never 

Has learned of them, or longed for them, on earth. 

Berlin Mountain. 

MISSION, MAN WITH A 

The more they knew him, something made of him 
Still more a stranger. All about his life 


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There hung an atmosphere of mystery. 

He seem’d through it to see what they saw not; 

And as their hush would heed the rare reports 
That reach’d them through the music of his voice, 
His thought oft seem’d a spirit’s; none could tell 
From whence it came; nor trace it where it went. 

A Life in Song: Prelude . 

MISSION VS. MISTRESS 

.... A woman craves attention and a home. 

Her lover’s mission, let it oft withdraw 

His ear or sphere from her, seems then her rival. 

. ... It would not, did she love the man’s true self. 
.... Perhaps, and yet the kinds of love men feel 
For mistress or for mission are so like! — 

What, if behind the mission’s love should be 
Some sentient spirit too in realms unseen? 

These women may be right. They may have rivals. 

Columbus , ii ; I. 

MISSIONS 

Some souls have missions because misled. 

Righting a Wrong . 

.... True missions only serve the higher self. 
.... Some people always think their own selves 
higher 

Than are the selves of those about them. 

Dante , III, I. 

MISSIONS VS. BUSINESS 

One’s mission, as a rule, 

Is wrought alone; one’s business with others. 

Things done alone may but be done for self. 

Things done with others may be done, too, for them. 

Idem. 

MISTAKE, MADE EXCUSABLE BY MAKING IT WORSE 
You know when one gets into slippery places, and 
starts to slide down hill, the safest thing, at times, is 
not to try to stop himself, but keep on sliding, till he 
touches bottom. So when a man has made a big 
mistake, he sometimes makes a bigger one, in case he 
fails to emphasize the one he made, so all will see how 
big it was, and what a big excuse he had for making it. 

Tuition for her Intuition y n. 


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253 


MISTRESS OF THE HOUSEHOLD 

I know one household now 
All radiant through its mistress! Where she dwells 
A sweet content pervades the very air, 

And genial sympathy smiles on to make 
Each whole long year one summer of delight. 

Ideals Made Real , lxxv. 
MISUNDERSTOOD ( see UNDERSTOOD) 

All the thoughts 

That flood the world spring up from single souls; 
And some of these may bless it most when made 
To spend their lives interpreting themselves. 

Dante , I., 2. 

I fear that any soul 
That needs to be interpreted, before 
It gains the common love of common men — 

For this alone is all for which I long — 

Dwells in the doom of some uncommon curse. 


Then I saw a wiser instinct, flowing forth unitedly, 

Where were crowds that came together at the call of 
liberty, 

Which, like thunder on the hillside, rousing rills from 
every spring, 

When they dash to seas that madly o’er the rocks the 
breakers fling, 

Roused, anon, a mass of mortals, who beneath a hissing 
tide, 

Quench’d the flaming guns that bellow’d from a 
tyrant’s tower defied. 

Then anon the wrath subsided; but the mob, ere back 
it roll’d, 

Had to havoc swept the good as well as bad that 
thrived of old. A Life in Song: Watching , vm. 
modern {see progress) 

Think you, friend that naught 

Has dimm’d with new alloy the modern phrase, 

And that it still makes clear thought’s ancient phase? 

Nay, may not one’s own thinking, too, debase 

The soul’s pure springs of God’s inspiring grace? 


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If so, can one be wise, and take no thought 
Of what another spirit has been taught? 

Idem , Seeking , xlv. 

MODEST 

The modest may be more unjust to self 
Than are the egotistic to their fellows. 

Dante, I., 2. 
To be 

Too modest, is to lag behind, and break 
God’s lines, who ranks us right. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

MODESTY, A WOMAN’S 

A woman’s modesty is her best treasure-case in 
which to hide her morals, yes — but if a drunken thief, 
she probably has lived so long with thieves that the 
treasure-case is empty. The Two Paths , hi. 

MOMENTS 

Life is poised on slender moments; all eternity on 
time; 

And the “still small voice” reveals the presence of a 
power sublime. A Life in Song: Dreaming , I. 
MONEY {see MARRIAGE FOR WEALTH) 

The time will come when money 
Will pay what work is worth; 

Will buy your task, and none will ask 
Your station or your birth. 

The right to earnings will be won 
By what a man himself has done. 

The time will come when money 
Will not seem more than man ; 

But hearts will yearn with all they earn 
To help all men they can. 

In rolls of honor in that state, 

Great love alone will make men great. 

The time will come when money 
Will not buy one a crown — 

To lift a snob above the mob 
And keep all others down. 

For men, to inward worth alert, 

Will only bow to true desert. 

The Little Twin Tramps , I. 


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MONEY AS A TOY ( see GAMBLING) 

At some time, you know, boys always use up or lose 
their toys. In the end, the same thing happens to 
men who begin to play with — make toys of — their 
money. The Snob and the Sewing Girl , III. 

MONEY MAKING (see COMPETENCE) 

.... Would not make money, then? 

.... Enough to spend; but not enough for coffers, 
or for coffins. You gild a living leaf, and it will die. 
You cover living souls with gold, too often they shine 
for others but decay for self. Their buried best is 
never brought to light. The Two Paths , iv. 

MONOMANIACS ( See CONSISTENT) 

monument {see fame, postumous, and tomb) 

Not oft, nor till ages of suns and storms 

Have wrought with the verdure in earthly forms , ) 

Are these turn’d into stone, no more to decay. 

But often on earth 
The owners of worth 

That men image in marble grow stony, that way. 

Ah, man, whom in hardship you might make a friend 
And turn from — beware, beware in the end, 

Lest he whom you harden grow hard unto you. 

O world, when ready your hero to cheer, 

How heeds he your welcome? say, what does he do? 

His eye, does it see? his ear, does it hear? 

His heart, does it throb? his pulse, does it thrill? 

Or his touch, is it cold? his clasp, is it chill? — 

O world, you have waited long ; what have you done? 

O man, you have wrought so long; what have you 
won? — 

That monument there, 

So high, so fair, 

That throne of light for the man who led, 

Is only a tomb. They are cheering the dead. 

Unveiling the Monument . 

MOOD, EVIL 

Your evil mood is master of your thought 

The Aztec God , iv., 1. 

MOODS, LIGHT, RESULTING FROM TROUBLE 
The lightest of moods, and the brightest as well, are 


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often mere spray flung up from the waves that a 
serious blow has been tossing. The Ranch Girl , I. 
MOON, THE, IN A STORM 

At last, my doubt had made me leave my beads, 

And, moved as if to cool a feverish faith, 

Pass out, the night air seeking. There I saw 
The moon. It soothed me always with strange spells, 
The moon. But now, as though all things would join 
To rout my peace, I seem’d this moon to see 
Caught up behind an angry horde of clouds, 

Chased by the hot breath of a coming storm 
That clang’d his thunder-bugle through the west. 
When once the rude gust hit the moon, it tipt — 

Or so it seem’d — and with a deafening peal 
It spilt one blinding flash. Then, where this lit, 

Just in the path before me gleam’d a knife! 

Held o’er a form of white! To see the thing 
I scream’d aloud. It seem’d a ghost ! 

Haydn , xxxi. 

MORAL EQUAL 

My soul demands in one whom I obey 
A moral equal, at the least. 

ColumbuSy i., 3. 

MORBID 

They call me morbid — if they mean 
I hate the wrong, wherever seen; 

And make supreme my own ideal; 

And grieve to find it not made real ; 

I hail the name. No titles go 
From earth to bias heaven, I trow. 

Men’s normal moods may sink and swell 
At one with tides that drift to hell. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , ix. 

MOTHER 

How oft in the night, ’mid the wind’s wild sweep 
Through the leaf -hung trees, or the spray-flung deep, 
My eye sees not, but a light will gleam 
Like an angel-face in an angel-dream; 

And back through the years 
My hush’d soul hears 
The call of a tone 



With cravings pale 

For church and stole and sermons of my own. 

See page joi. 






SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


25 7 


Like the spirit’s own; 

And I feel the press 
Of a lost caress, 

And of lips that bear 
Both a kiss and a prayer 
For my cheeks that glow as my pulses thrill. 

Ah, is it a wonder my eye should fill? 

I feel, whatever my life may be, 

That one in the past had love for me; 

When, dear as a boon from a realm of the blest. 

My soul was press’d 
To my mother’s breast. 

Idem , Loving , vi. 

MOTHERHOOD 

She hints — not so? — that truest womanhood 
Is maidenhood? — By Eve and Mary, false! — 
The mother lives the model of her sex, 

And not the maid. Haydn , xlii. 

The tender plant that springs to the air 
From the small frail urn of youth 
Is trained, if at all, by a woman’s care 
For the flowering and fruitage of truth. 

Each home is an Eden that owns an Eve 
Whose deeds make all life joy or grieve. 

Love and Life , vil. 
MOTHS VS. WORMS 

More blest the short-lived moths that fly to flame 
Straight through a pathway lit by coming light 
Than long-lived worms that crawl thro’ endless mire. 

The Aztec God , 1. 

MOTIVES AND THOUGHT 

What moves me seems beyond all conscious thought; 
Seems like the lure that leads the summer bird 
Southward when comes the fall. It is enough, 

It is my destiny. I weigh it well, 

And find it rational ; yet why I first 
Conceived it as I do, I cannot tell. 

Columbus , hi., 1. 

If men were manikins they might be moved by mo- 
tives not translated into thought. But men have 
minds, and so they often get what guides more wisely 


17 


258 


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from a knave who thinks than from a saint contented 
with his motives. Tuition for her Intuition , ill. 
moulds ( see forms) 

Souls that find their calmest living must be one long 
struggle here 

With the moulds that strain and shatter all that 
nature’s child holds dear. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xxi. 

MOUNTAINEERS 

And they forgot that mountaineers, 

High rangers, like the Swiss, 

Would learn to value freedom’s world 
By looking down on this! Ethan Allen. 
MOUNTAINS 

My mountains, how I love your forms that stand 
So beautiful, so bleak, so grim, so grand. 

Your gleaming crags above my boyhood’s play, 
Undimm’d as hope, rose o’er each rising day. 

When now light hope has yielded place to care, 

O’er steadfast work I see you steadfast there. 

And when old age at last shall yearn for rest, 

By your white peaks will each aspiring glance be blest. 
How bright and broad with ever fresh surprise, 

The scenes ye brought allured my youthful eyes ! 
Now, when rude hands those views of old assail, 
When growing towns have changed the lower vale, 
When other friends are lost or sadly strange, 

Ye stand familiar still, ye do not change. 

And when all else abides as now no more, 

In you I still may see the forms I loved of yore. 

Y e mounts deserve long life. Y our peaks at dawn 
Catch light no sooner from the night withdrawn, 
Than those ye rear see truth, when brave men vow 
To serve the serf, and bid the despot bow. 

In vales below, if tyrants make men mild, 

The weak who scale your sides learn winds are wild, 
That beasts break loose, and birds awaken'd flee, 

As if in deepest sleep they dream’d of being free. 

High homes of manhood, human lips can phrase 
No tribute fit to echo half your praise. 

By Piedmont’s church and Ziska’s rock-wall’d see, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


259 


By Scot and Swiss who left their children free, 

By our New England, when she named him knave 
Who, flank’d by bloodhounds, chased his 'fleeing slave, 
Stand ye like them, whose memories, ever grand, 

Tower far above earth’s lords, as ye above its land. 
Ay, stand like monuments in lasting stone 
To souls as lofty as the world has known. 

Ye fitly symbol, when with kindling light 
The dawn and sunset gild your summits white, 

The glories of their pure, aspiring worth 
Who aim’d at stars to feed the hopes of earth ; 

And fitly point where they, in brighter skies, 

View grander scenes than yours where your heights 
cannot rise. My Mountains. 

MOUNTAINS, INFLUENCE OF, ON THOUGHT 
How blest the child whose thought begins to build 
Ideals of deeds on dreams that, morn by morn, 

Awake to greet a mother’s flushing face 
That bends above his cradle! Many a soul 
Reared in these valleys where, like mighty sides 
Of some far grander cradle, lift these hills, 

And where in bleakest wintry skies appears 

Thy mountain’s white brow warmed with flush of dawn, 

Has waked to see thee, day by day, until 

The habit grew a part of life itself 

And ruled his being, — that whatever light 

Left heaven or lit the earth would find his form 

In paths where it was always moving upward. 

Greylock. 

With what delight my heart first welcomed thee! 

And then, like one whose form lies prone in sleep, 

My young imagination woke and rose 

And strove to climb, and heaven alone can tell 

How wisely has been climbing ever since. Idem. 

MOUNTAINS, SUGGESTIVE OF CREATIVE FORCE 
No hands of human art could be the first 
To draw thy contour’s broken lines against 
The ended glory of the sunset sky. 

No thought of human mind could ever plan, 

Nor power uphold them. Nay, they must have 
sprung 


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To shape like this when some primeval frost 
Chilled, caught and crystallized the storm-swept 
waves 

Of chaos that, arrested in their rage, 

They fitly might portray the power beneath. 

Stay there, great billows, all your boulder-drops 
Held harmless where they hang; and all the spray 
That might have dashed above them merely leaves 
Of bush and forest, held to equal pause 
Save where, perchance, their fluttering, now and then, 
Reveals a feeling that they once were free; 

Stay there suspended in the sky! But sure 
As days roll up the sun, an hour must come 
When blazing blasts again shall shake those peaks, 

Shall pile them higher, level them to plains, 

Or melt them back to primal nothingness. 

West Mountain . 

MOUNTAINS, SUGGESTIONS OF SURROUNDING 
Did ever yet a form appear on earth 
Divine in mission that would fail to bless 
Those, too, who could but touch its garment’s hem? 
As long as thinking can be shaped by things, 

And that which holds our life can mould our love, 
What soul can seek the skies with wistful gaze 
And be content with only soil below? 

Oh, does it profit naught that one should dwell 
Amid surroundings that no eyes can see 
Save as they look above, no feet can leave, 

To seek the outer world, save as they climb? 

Where every prospect homes itself on high, 

And each horizon seems a haunt of heaven? 

Greylock. 

MOUNTAINS IN A THUNDER STORM 
We saw the mountain-summits as before. 

And soon, upon the highest peak of all, 

Some clouds appear’d. They seem’d, ere long, to 
crawl 

Along the hights, and lengthen out, and show 
Themselves the first of others gathering so, 

Which soon closed up behind them. Then we heard 
The moan of forests that above were stirr’d; 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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Then nearer trees began to quake and sway; 

And with good cause ! for blackening all the way 
A storm was coming on, with an array 
As fierce as hosts of fiends might be, if sent 
From hell to charge some heavenly battlement. 

As fiercely, foully, did its forces try 
To break the lines of light in earth and sky, 

With sad success! they carried each redoubt; 

And, bounding down with thunder-tread and shout, 
On every side their weapons flash’d, and lash’d 
The howling waste through which their fury dash’d. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xxn. 

MOUNTAIN VIEW 
At last we reach’d a dark defile, 

Through which a river dash’d ; but soon the dell 
Became a precipice, adown which fell 
The spray-sent stream, then thunder’d its farewell 
A thousand feet below. From where we stood 
We watch’d it wind and gleam amid a wood, 

Whose tree-tops far beneath us waved away, 

Well swept by winds that made them sigh and sway, 
Across a sea-like space of hills and dales. 

The high-heaved peaks and all the deep-rent vales 
Were bright with autumn’s tints that end the year 
Like sunset ending day. “The glories here 
Bespeak translation and not death,” said he. 

“These leaves are bright as flowers that lure the bee 
In orchards. When they fall, the limbs are clear 
For life’s fresh fruitage of the coming year. 

So find I autumn’s hues of gold and red 
Worn by each season, ere the leaves are shed, 

A mantle which the old year from the skies 

Drops like Elijah’s, and it prophesies 

New life beyond to which all nature hies.” Idem , xvi. 

MOURNER, EXPERIENCE OF A 
Last night when darkness fell and veiled my face 
From those I surely thought it else had frighted, 

I walked the streets and watched the city dream. 

In lanes, in inns, in churches, and in homes 
Each face I gazed at loomed as grim with shadows 
As those that clung to mine. Her funeral pall 


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Seemed closely hung about my form as her’s, 
Flopping a dangling, dire, bedraggled fringe 
Of tear-soaked black between myself and all things. 

Dante , n., I. 

MOUTH 

I would rather risk, 
Without a disenchanting yell or yolp, 

Extracting teeth than thought from such a mouth. 

Idem , I., i. 

Were I a moth 

In a rug their crowd came trampling, I should fight — 
Ay, with my mouth, too, as you seem to ask — 

And keep on fighting there, until I wrought 
My way to something that could not be trampled. 

Idem . 

.... He talked, at first, of eating and of drinking. 
.... Quite natural ! The mouth, like other things 
will buzz the most of what it does the most. 

On Detective Duty III. 

MOUTH, KEEPING IT SHUT 
.... But if you drug him? — 

.... He himself gave you the chance. Con- 
founded idiot — should have kept his mouth shut ! 
.... The same that one could say of most fools. 
.... Yes; the sooner, too, they find it out the 
better. Why were our stomachs put inside our bodies, 
why were our senses put inside our skulls, if we were 
meant to open up to everything? Idem , II. 

MOUTHS, FOR TALKING AS WELL AS EATING 
Our human mouths are doors that swing in front of 
souls as well as palates, — where the fun comes out as 
well as food goes in. To balance the lower use of 
them in chewing, 'tis better, when we eat, to talk. 

The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 

MOVEMENT 

Nay, as the flush'd and fever’d blood will start 
About the shot that rends a soldier’s breast, 

As if mere movement could remove the smart, 
Unrest relieved his pain, each month revealing 
A milder movement and a firmer eye. 

A Life in Song : Serving , lxxiii. 


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MURILLO 

No sweeter Murillo’s divine designs, 

Whose purity rivals each thought it refines, 

While the dreamy intent of a life-brooding haze 
Throngs thick with the beauty of immature praise. 
Conceptions immaculate still may be 
In the pure white light that he could see, 

Inspired to incarnate a soul in each plan, 

The life of a picture as well as of man. 

The Artist's Aim. 

MUSE 

Woe me, I stand, 

A poet born, who deem’d his Muse had fled; 

That time and trouble had a stone roll’d up, 

Her sweet form sealing in their sepulchre. 

And yet one breath of love could rouse the dead. 

All day the subtle spirit haunts me now, 

Thrill’d through and through to sound her sweetness 
forth. Ideals Made Real , liii. 

music (see harmony) 

Music throbs with life. 
The sounds are sentient . . . 

They make me thrill, as if a power should come, 
And touch, with hands below these fleshly robes, 
And clasp, as loving spirits do, the spirit. 

They woo me as a god might, owning heaven. 

Haydn , 1. 

MUSIC, EXPRESSING GRIEF 
Did ever harpsichord so crave a voice 
To utter forth a cry of full despair? 

Did ever aught that human hands could touch 
So tremble to reveal such agony 
As wrung the frame of him whose fingers wrought, 
Along the sympathetic key-board there, 

The counterpoint still pointing out his woe? 

Haydn , xlv. 

I never so had trembled at the peals 
Of thunder as beneath the chords he struck; 

Nor felt my cheek so moist by rains as there 
By tears that flow’d as flow’d his melodies; 

While all the air about appear’d surcharged 


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With dangerous force electric, touch’d alone 
To flash keen suffering from his heart to mine. 
And yet, each day, his music sweeter swell’d. 

Ere that, it may have lack’d in undertone, 

The pleading pathos of half-utter’d grief: 

Since then, I never hear it but it seems 
As if the heavens had been bereaved of love, 

And pour’d their sad complaint on earth beneath; 
And I who listen to the sweetness of it 
Can never tell if I should smile or weep 
To think that it has come so far below, 

Or feel that it has left so much above. 

Idem , XL vi. 

MUSIC FREES THE MIND IT RULES 

What different moods, 

These chords, we hear, arouse in different minds! 
That maid may smile amid sweet dreams of love; 
Her dark attendant dream of but her wealth; 
That matron plan some fresh self-sacrifice; 

And that spare fellow, twirling near her side 
The soft mustache that downs his pursing lips, 
Plan only how to hide their stingy look. 

And thus all listen, musing different things; 

And all, with conscious freedom, muse of them; 
And yet one harmony controls them all, 

Aroused or calm to match its changing flow. 

What else but music frees the mind it rules? 
“Good-will to man,” was first proclaim’d in song. 

Ideals Made Real , xxxviii. 

MUSIC OF LIFE 

Music round the world is ringing, 

Sweeter ne’er is heard by man; 

Music angel hosts were singing, 

Ere the morning stars began; 

Sweeter ’t is than dreams of music, 

Music one awakes to hear 
Trailing on a train of echoes 
O’er a mild and moonlit meer; 

More it moves than martial marches, 

More than gleams of long-lost hope, 

More than suns to glory lifting 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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Dew they draw from plain and slope; 

Music ’t is that thrills us only 
In the art that hearts control, 

When the breath of ardor holy 
Softly stirs a sighing soul. 

The Music of Life. 

MUSIC OF NATURE 

At times, mysterious whirs of winds and wings 
And whisperings rose, with long-drawn echoings. 

’T was music, lingering lovingly along 

The breeze its fragrance freighted, like a song 

From bay-bound barks in hazy autumn calms ; 

Nor less it sway’d my soul than slow low psalms, 
Begun where organ blasts that roar’d and rush’d 
And made the air- waves roll, are swiftly hush’d, 
And our thrill’d breasts inhale as well as hear 
The awe-fill’d sweetness of the atmosphere. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , iv. 
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES 

The wise who once thought heavenly spheres, 

As all unroll’d their store of years, 

Woke music through their atmospheres 
That soft and far was ringing; 

Heard subtler music, it may be, 

Where love rules all, yet all are free, 

And though not thoughts, yet hearts agree, 

For all beat time in singing. 

A Song on Singing. 

MUSICAL VS. POETIC MOVEMENT 

Music moves forward like a wheel when its spokes 
are revolving, the united influence of the tones being 
far more marked than the significance of separate 
tones. Poetry moves forward like one walking, step by 
step, the united influence of sentences being scarcely 
more perceptible than that of separate words. 

The Representative Significance of Form f xxii. 
MUSICIAN 

How could I show more worth, 

Than as a reed for a breath divine, 

Blowing from heaven to earth? 

Musician and Moralizer. 


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MYSTERY IN LOVE 

Do we mention love? Oh, how should we dare? 

For love one may only harm 
By stripping its form of the mystery there, 

Which is oft its holiest charm. 

A Life in Song: Loving , XL. 

MYSTERY IN RELIGION 

Naught can train more truthful piety 
Than earnest thought, awaiting patiently 
In heaven's own light each heavenly mystery. 

Idem , Seeking , XL VII. 
Could one solve 
All motives and all means of mystery, 

There were no sphere for faith. 

Dante , II., 2. 

Can aught that men serve reverently 
Be void of deep dark voids of mystery? 

A Life in Song: Seeking, xlvii. 
MYTH 

You, like a myth. 

Are not inspired, but yet inspiring; not 
Religion, but could make a man religious. 

Columbus, II., I. 
NATURE, AND HUMAN CHARACTER 
No character, I think, grows wholly ripe 
Save that which grows as nature guides its growth. 

Haydn, xli. 

NATURE AND HUMAN INFLUENCE 
Earth might have more of beauty, had it had 
More continence; nor spent, and spawned such crowds 
Between ourselves and nature. As it is, 

What tempt our taste appear too often served 
Like viands one can scarcely see for flies, 

Or test for spice and pepper. Dante, hi., 2. 

NATURE, AS A GUIDE TO ACTION 
What has a man that a child has too, 

When “of such is the kingdom" on high? 

He knows that life is better’d by rules, 

But he knows how split the wise and the fools 
When judging of rules they apply. 

He feels that life worth living proceeds 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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From nature that prompts the bent of deeds; 

And he lets the reins of his being go, 

Whenever the soul moves upward so. 

If he look to God through self or His Book, 

Or leading the way through a bishop’s crook, 

He welcomes whatever has worth in the new, 
Though it grew outside of his Timbuctoo. 

For modest he is, and loves to find 
Earth blest by minds that differ in kind. 

In short, to the simple, the frail, and the few 
He is fill’d with charity through and through; 
And, waiving your reason its right of control, 
Trusts God for enough truth left in your soul ; 
And though he may tell you he doubts your way, 
He has much to love in spite of his “nay”; 

And that may a man and a child have too. 

Of Such Is the Kingdom. 
NATURE, BEING TRUE TO 
Ah, he who learns of this, and comes to live 
In close communion with it, finds, at times, 
When Nature whom he loves has laid aside 
Her outer guise and clasps him to her heart, 
That there are mysteries, not vague but clear, 
Not formless but concrete, which, it must be, 
That those alone can know, or have a right 
To know, who always, like a faithful spouse, 
Have kept their spirits to the spirit true. 

West Mountain . 

NATURE, INDIVIDUAL 

In loneliness I wander’d; 

When, lo, above me, ringing 
Amid the breeze 
That shook the trees, 

I heard a bird’s glad singing. 

I looked, and through the leaves could see 
The warbler nod and chirp for me. 

“One friend is left me yet,” thought I, 

And ventur’d near 
The song to hear ; 

But when he saw me drawing nigh, 

Alas, in fright 
He took to flight ! 


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Not, not for me had been his care. 

He sang to greet the sunny air, 

And serve his own sweet nature. 

A Misapprehension . 

We fight the hydra, we, 

Who war against our nature. Every head 
That reason clove would rise redoubled there. 

Ideals Made Real , xm. 

Some natures are choice as gems, and every tool 
men turn against them grinds itself, not them, and all 
grow brighter from the process. The Two Paths, ill. 

You know there are some natures that act toward 
our own as flowers do toward bees. No matter how 
much we buzz about them, even though we sting them, 
once in a while, we never get back anything but 
sweetness. Where Society Leads , hi. 

NATURE, MATERIAL, AS A SCHOOL 
And when these mounts, like mighty sheets above 
Some slumbering giant soon to wake and walk, 

Fall back to formlessness from whence they came, 
What wisdom shall be proved the choice of him 
Whose eyes, in mercy shielded from the blaze 
On which the soul alone can look and live, 

Did not mistake mere grossness in the form 
For the true greatness of the inward force; 

Whose mind too slightly taught, as yet, perhaps, 

To read, beneath the picture, all the text, 

Has yet surmised its meaning by that faith 
Which, though its guide be instinct, dares to think, 
And, though it bow to greet the symbol, yet 
Lets not its magic cast a spell on sense! 

To him the world seems but a transient school ; 

The universe, a university; 

The blue that homes the sunlight and the stars, 

A dome above a vast museum built 
With glens for alcoves, plains for galleries, 

And mounts for stairways, where he works and waits 
Till comes the day he takes his last degree, 

And then goes forth, and leaves all these behind, 

Yet, in a true sense, holds them his forever. 

West Mountain . 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 269 


NATURE, MATERIAL, ITS RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE 
My mind was turn’d to nature. Where but there 
Could earth-born trouble find maternal care? 

How long’d I to be hidden in the shade 
Which the thick mantlings of her forests made, 

And stay there undisturb’d by human thought, 

Till sweet and soothing influences, brought 
From sources far removed from man’s control 
Should cool the burning fever of my soul. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , 1. 
Nature is 

Transparent, and reveals her mysteries 
To mortals only whose own sympathies 
Make them transparent, opening all between 
Themselves and nature, so that naught can screen 
Her inmost meaning from their inmost mind. 

Such spirits in earth’s round horizon find 
A glass divine — like that called Claude Lorraine’s — 

A strange, strong lens that deep within contains 
Heaven’s forms for thought, made small in scope to 
match 

Man’s comprehension. Idem , x. 

How few so wise 

That they can look beneath the rustling guise 
Of Nature’s vestments, and perceive below 
The mind informing them, that makes them glow 
With living truth. Alas, how many souls, 

As blind to all that might be seen as moles, 

Live, merely burrowing in earth’s dust and gloom 
To make their whole surroundings but a tomb 
Wherein dead minds may lie. And yet how grand 
Might life become, could all but understand 
The thoughts that flow with brooks in every glade, 
And grow to strengthen souls with ever blade 
Of verdure in the spring-time! Could they read 
And know and use earth rightly, then, indeed, 

Might heaven too open above them, while they too 
Would cry like Paul, “What wilt Thou have me do?’* 

Idem . 


NERVES 

. . . . You never feel your soul here in your nerves? 
. . . . No, no. 


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.... My nerves are weaker, then, than yours. 
.... Your soul may then be stronger. 

Dante , I., 2. 

NEW, THE ( see ADVANCE, CHANGE, and PROGRESS) 
Ay, let the dead bury their dead, and pursue 
The aims of a people that push for the new 
The proudest ambition, the readiest hand, 

Might wisely embody ideals less grand ; 

The Artist's Aim. 
Yet ne’er at daybreak had begun 
One ray a shining course to run 
But snakes crawl’d out to hiss the sun; 

And e’er, if truth then dawn’d in view, 

Would tongues, whose fangs in fury flew, 

Cry: “Who have seen the like? Have you?” 

Ah me ! and what, forsooth, is new 
And strange to men’s experience, 

’T would libel all their own past sense 
For them to treat with reverence ! 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xvm. 
NEW YORK MANNERS 

.... It seemed to me that she was quite familiar 
with you, Roger. 

.... That is the New York manner. 

.... Yes, you know, the roudy-genteel manner of 
New York. Our students have it, Faith — I mean our 
Sophomores. 

.... They always from New York? 

.... They always are — those that we have to 
question. They were there the night before. 

The Two Paths , I. 

NEW WORLD, VISION OF THE 

Lo, there dawn’d a light about me and a vision in my 
sleep 

Rose above the midnight vapors, and it floated o’er 
the deep : 

In a shell like alabaster, by an unseen impulse drawn, 
There I saw three forms who journey’d softly as the 
light of dawn. 

Beautiful, the central figure stood with eyes upon the 
sky, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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As if fill’d with faith that surely heaven would all her 
need supply. 

Just above her unbound ringlets gleam’d as ’t were the 
morning star; 

And within her shining breastplate mirror’d lands 
appear’d afar. 

At her right hand, underneath her, crouch’d the aged 
limbs of War; 

Yet he fiercely clutch’d his bow as when in youth ’t was 
battled for, 

Though his eyes were glaring backward, and seem’d 
anger’d but to find 

That the storms they sought had linger’d on the shore 
they left behind. 

At her right hand, peering forward, knelt the white- 
robed form of Peace, 

As a prince might kneel for crowning, or a serf for his 
release ; 

While against his brow his palm bent, shielding from 
the light the glance 

Of an eye whose pleas for patience were but prayers 
for swift advance. 

Thus I saw the forms, when, lo! more forms before 
them suddenly 

Sprang from sky and sea like hopes along a path of 
prophecy. 

’T was as if a grander people, wash’d of prejudice and 
pride, 

Passed a newer, broader Jordan, rose upon a grander 


side. 

’T was as if all earth had caught a glory flash’d on 
mount and isle ; 

’T was as if the heaven had open’d, where all nations 
throng’d the while, 

And a fresh wind rose that whisper’d: “Where shall 
man to man be true? — 

In the old world old ways triumph; Freedom hies to 


seek the new. ” 


A Life in Song: Watching , xxn. 


NICHE, FILLING AN EMPTY 
The surest place of refuge for one out of place 
is a vacancy. It rids him of the trouble of upsett- 


2^2 


A POETS CABINET 


ing the plans of others, in order to set up his own. 
No need of fighting for an empty niche when 
using eyes can find one. 

What Money Can't Buy , i. 

NIGHT 

Night, too, blesses him who feels 
’T is a star in which he kneels. 

Idem , Dreaming , xli. 

Above vague moon-lit forms of mount and vale 
There lies the haze- wrought mantle of the night. 
The winds are hush’d; the clouds are still and pale; 
The stars like drowsy eyes just wink their light. 
Earth sleeps, except where on the seashore white 
The tumbled waves are waked by distant gales, 

Or where the calls of owls and nighthawks fright 
The startled slumberer of the silent dales 
With sounds they never make till night their plunder- 
ing veils. Idem, Daring, I. 

NIGHT, WHEN ANTICIPATING LOVE 
“ Ah me!” I sigh’d, yet strangely; for there seem’d, 
While all the way the twilight thicker sank, 

Sweet silence luring dreamward wind and bird 
Until the reverent air lay hush’d where came 
The hallowing influence of holier stars. 

And, all the way, deep folding round my soul, 

With every nerve vibrating at its touch, 

Fell dim delight, through which, as through a veil, 
Some nearer presence breath’d of holier life. 

Ah, wandering Heart, and had I had my day? — 

With closing gates as golden as yon west? 

And whither was I moving in the dark? — 

“Who knows? ” my spirit ask’d, “who knows or cares? 
On through the twilight threshold, trustingly! 

What hast thou, Night, that weary souls need fear? 
Thou home of love entranced, thou haunt of dreams, 
Thy halls alone can hoard the truth of heaven ! 

Thy dome alone can rise to reach the stars!” 

Ideals Made Real, xiv. 

NIGHT, WHEN IN TROUBLE 
What comes as direful as the direful night 
A spirit spends in trouble? — fill’d with fears 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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That sleep may bring distressful nightmares now; 
And now, that morn may come before we sleep ; 
Until, betwixt the two, distracted quite, 

Awake one dreams, and dreaming seems awake, 
And evermore does weep at what he dreams, 

And then does weep that he should dream no more. 

Haydn , xxxm. 

NOBLE, MAN 

.... How noble is a man like you 

.... A pauper and fanatic 

.... No, a man 

Who, all alone, can stand with but one friend, 

His own brave soul, and trample underfoot 
A hissing world that, coiling like a snake, 

Would clutch him to its clod and hold him there. 

Columbus , 1., 2. 


NOON 

When, at noon, 

The trees drew in their shade, as birds their wings. 

A Life in Song: Daring , xxvm. 
NOTORIETY 

What he 

Cares for is notoriety, which means 

The bulge of contrast. Crush and hush your kind, 

And you yourself are seen and heard. 

Columbus , hi ., 2. 


NURSE, THE WOMAN IN THE HOSPITAL 

Let them find 

Large, sunny, healthful halls; and dwell therein: 
From thence deal forth that gentle charity 
So potent coming from a woman’s hand. 

Not strange it were if sickness, tended thus, 
Enliven’d by her smiles of light, should flush 
Or blush to perfect health ! if wickedness, 

Beneath incrusted woes of years of wrong, 

Should feel the earlier faith of childhood waked 
By woman’s voice, and thus be bom again! — 

And find a life renew’d within the soul 

As well as body. Haydn , xli. 

OBSCURE SOURCE OF WISDOM 
It came from an obscure source. Anything very 

18 


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A POET'S CABINET 


sensible usually does. The recognized rulers of the 
world, like the devil whom the scriptures declare to be 
the prince of it, generally have more will than wisdom. 

Fundamentals of Education . 

OBSCURITY IN POSITION 

Full many a blaze-mailed knight men’s cheers allure 
To wrong by which mere groundling-praise is won ; 
While serfs, though soil-stained, keep life’s record 
pure 

Because their dust-hid deeds are wrought for none 
Save One for whom no life is too obscure 
To show the spirit in which work is done. 

Obscurity . 

OBSCURITY, SAVING FROM TROUBLE 
My mail has not been gilded yet enough to make 
myself a mark for blackmail, has it? Heaven never 
helps us more than when it sends us obscurity. This 
lets us work our work just as our spirits wish, with 
none to curse us or cheer us falsely. 

The Two Paths , in. 
odd {see eccentric) 

I knew a family 

Where all the children grew so very odd, — 

Like fruit when tough to touch and sour to taste. 
Not ripe nor mellow. Too much spring had they, 
And not enough of summer in their home. 

Haydn , xxiv. 

OFFICIAL, THE 

In Church or State, the official seems the same, — 

A fist in front with which to threaten one ; 

A palm behind to beg him for a bribe. 

Dante , n., 2. 

OLD HEADS 

When young, I, too, saw heights I thought sublime; 
And tried to drive toward them some older folk ; 

But, boy, ’t is only young blood cares to climb. 
Try it: you cannot drive, and may provoke 
Old heads, too long ago grown steady to life’s yoke. 

A Life in Song, Daring , xxv. 

OLD MASTERS 

I will not think with those who would let none 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


275 


But some “old master ” dictate my new deed, 

As if a plan to fit the future’s need 

Could all be fashioned on what once was done ! 

The Final Verdict . 
OLD PEOPLE, WHY UNINTERESTING 
We two are old; we should remember that. The 
thing that makes most people take an interest in us is 
watching how we grow ; and when we cease to grow, of 
course they lose their interest. The lisping tongue, 
the tottering gait of childhood, are charming, yes; but 
not in second childhood. There once were times that, 
when I walked the street, the boys and girls and all 
would look at me. Those times have passed. To-day 
they look away, if there be younger people near me. 
Why? In me they face no hope. I soon shall die. 
I can remember well the earliest time I found our 
daughter drawing listeners away from me myself. 
The thing she said was far from wise. What of it? 
Those we meet care less for sense in us than sympathy ; 
and when we turn down hill toward waiting graves, 
what hope of fellow-feeling from the young? 

On Detective Duty , 1. 
OLD, THE, NEVER RETURNS 
.... I like to get back where I have been. 

. . . .You never can get back there, the world 
keeps whirling around, and grinding out something 
new. The Ranch Girl t iv. 

onward ( see progress) 

Why should mortals be becalm’d amid the earthly 
darkness here, 

While the lights from countless havens throng the 
heavens far and near ! 

Surely sails, wide spread to woo them, heaven’s fair 
winds cannot forsake : 

That which moves to right moves onward, tho’ but 
slowly grows its wake. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , vn. 

OPPORTUNITY 

She left ; and I who wander, fear 
There comes no more to see or hear; 

Those walls that ward my paradise 


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Are very high, nor open twice. 

And I, who had my own design 
For destiny that should be mine, 

Can only wait without the gate 
And sit and sigh — “Too late! too late!” 

The Destiny- Maker. 
Life brings day as well as night, 

When day, the wise will use the sunshine. 

The Aztec God , I. 

OPPORTUNITY, USE AND ABUSE OF 
The same sunshine that ripens one plant, rots 
another. The Snob and the Sewing Girl, iv. 

OPPOSITION, REQUIRED AT TIMES 

Parents gone insane, 
Or but awry, are saved by opposition. 

Love uniformed and forced in hatred’s pressgang 
Is only served by those who war against it. 

Dante , n., 2. 

ORDAINING 

There may be some ordaining grace 
That priest and prince of every race 
Have sought through mystic lines to trace ; — 

A something back of sword and gown, 

Power apostolic, handed down: 

There are no wise men to the clown: 

The royal mind in tent or town 
To loyal genius owes its crown. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , ill. 

ORIGINALITY VS. IMITATION 
You write as one who rests in a ravine 
Recording but what others have beheld 
Above where he dare venture. 

. . . . You would have me? — 

. . . . Climb up, or soar — 

. . . . But how? — 

. . . . . The spirit’s wings 

Are grown, not given, unfold within oneself. 

But you — you get both word and thought from others. 

Dante, I., i. 

OTHERS 

Who, who that once brute-force enthrone 


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O’er others’ rights can save their own? 

After the Lynching. 
OTHERS, A PART OF SELF 

.... Do I owe you because you worked for others? 

.... Humph! What are others but a part of 
you? — This house and all it holds — the roads, the 
farms, the flocks, the cattle — all that feed and clothe 
you, the schools, the government, and everything that 
makes you what you are, are part of you; and if I 
worked for them, I worked for you. 

On Detective Duty , 11. 

OURSELVES 

What fools we are when we would read ourselves. 

The Aztec God , 11. 

The sun gives everything its light; 

The mind gives everything its thought ; 

And what we deem is dark or bright, 

Reflects but what ourselves have brought. 

The Little Twin Tramps , 11. 

OUTSIDE VS. INSIDE ( See BUBBLES) 

Not outside things that men can take away 
Bring ruin, but the things that stay within, 
Which would they could take ! 

Columbus , 1., 3. 

OUTWITTING THOSE OUTWITTING US 

A man like him, who earns his living by outwitting 
others, will not be keen to let the whole world know 
that he himself has been outwitted; see? 

On Detective Duty , hi. 

OVERBEARING 
Your overbearing shows us 
Your underbred ideal. 

To the Wife of a Public Alan. 

OVERFLOW IN NATURE AND MIND {see EXCESS) 

In every sphere, beyond what merely meets 
The first demand of need, there issues forth 
A constant overflow. ’T is this that brings 
More sunlight than the eye of toil exhausts, 

More summer rain than clears and cools the air 
Where smoke and flame the world’s too heated axles. 
*T is this regales the hunger of fatigue 


2 7 8 


A POETS CABINET 


By foretastes of refreshment never failing, 

And shows, beyond the prisons of this earth, 

Through opening gates, the free expanse of heaven 
Without this overflow, no wish could play, 

No thought could dream, no fancy slip the links 
Of logic, and wing off with childlike faith 
And poise o’er mysteries too deep for sight. 

Without it, not one poet would repeat 
His empty echoes of life’s humdrum work, 

His rhythmic laughter of disburdened thought. 
Without it, not one artist would essay 
To mimic Nature when it molds to gems 
Its melting worthlessness, or, like a wizard, 

Waves with its wand to welcome bubbling froth 
And turn to amber that which aimed for air. 

Without it, ah, without it, there would be 

No life of life more grand by far than all 

That worlds can outline or that minds conceive, — 

No wings to lift aloft our thrilling souls 
And bear them on, unconscious how or why, 

Far past all limits of all earth-moved thought 
Until, at last, they seem to reach the verge 
Of heaven’s infinity. Berlin Mountain . 

own, one’s 

The things that are seen may all be white. 

One’s own is the sugar ; the others’ are salt. 

Love and Life, xxxn. 

PAIN 

Though, perchance, it seem 
Too old a story, weigh it yet, until 
You think, once more, what men, whom all esteem, 
The same old story in their lives fulfil. 

We know them now; but ah, there is no knowing 
The pain that gave their souls their second birth, 
When fetters of the flesh fell death ward, showing 
That love for all one’s kind which makes a heaven of 
earth. A Life in Song: Serving, xc. 

PAINT ON THE FACE 

.... Strange that a sensible woman shouldn’t 
recognize that anyone can see through paint. 

.... You mean can not see through it. That ’s the 


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trouble. It makes everybody wonder what there is 
there which might be seen, but is not, because it needs 
to be covered up. Where Society Leads , 1. 

PALACES THAT ARE PRISONS 
You sometimes build a prison when you think it is a 
palace. Some men, who start by gilding what they 
live in, keep scrubbing all their days to keep it bright. 

The Two Paths , iv. 

PALMISTRY, ITS PSYCHIC CLAIMS 
Your future is the fruit of present dreams, 

The lure that leads the deepest wish within you; 

The goal that lights the furthest path of hope. 

A touch that feels the start can point the finish. 

. . . . You think so? 

.... There is nothing stops the flow 

Of thought betwixt my fingers and my brain, 

Betwixt your fingers and your brain; not so? — 

Now join these — what cuts off your brain from mine? 
.... Our wills. 

.... Yet if I yield my will to yours 

. . . . But can you? 

.... And if not, what boots the priest 

His years of fasting and of discipline? 

The Aztec God, 1. 
PANTHEISTIC VIEW OF LIFE 
You call them beautiful? When you have seen 
As much of men as I, you will think more 
Of greater spirits with their lives enshrined 
In mountain, valley, forest, bush, and flower 
Than of these little spirits framed in flesh. 

Idem. 


PARASITES 

A rich man is like a tree in a southern climate — in 
danger of being overclimbed and over-reached, as 
people say, by parasites. 

What Money Can't Buy, 111. 
parent {see father and mother) 

Behold in the parent the world’s first priest, 

To tender, till childhood’s wants have ceast, 

The flickering fires 
That fall and rise in rash desires ; 


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To soothe and assuage, 

In a body that thirsts and soul that aspires, 

The wishes of youth with the wisdom of age; 

To kneel or to stand 
With a mission more grand 
Than any but His whose touch divine 
First lit the flame on the human shrine, 

Then left it alone where all men try 
To fan its burning or find it die. 

Love and Life , xlii. 
parents {see children) 

What tho* the years that come with drought and frost 
May bring disaster and may leave distress? 

The parents* faith can look past harvests lost 
To where the future shall the harm redress. 

Their offspring whom their love is fondly training, 
Show beauty in the bud, and promise more: 

And if one season blast its best attaining, 

Oh, has not early life long years of growth in store! 

A Life in Song: Serving , xvii. 
PARENTS* LAWS VS. GOD*S 
.... But how about the honor due to parents? 
.... The only parent of the soul is God ; and when 
our language fails to speak its prompting, think what 
dishonor we have done to Him? 

Tuition for her Intuition , I. 

PARLIAMENT OF MAN 
The largest hope since time began, 

For which the whole world waits, 

Is that for which our statesmen plan, — 

The coming Parliament of Man, 

The world's United States. 

God Bless America. 

PARROTS 

The phrases parrots quote are those that charm them. 

On Detective Duty , hi. 

PARTING 

Till out of her lips a parting came 
Where I waited a welcoming word. 

She could not have meant to make me sadder, 

But long, long after good-bye I bade her, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


281 


Behind me would flow 
Like a note of woe 

That parting word, as if what she had said 
Were a wail of the wind in a night with the dead. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxm. 
PARTNER FOR LIFE ( See WEDDED) 

I, all my life, 

Have served a spirit larger than myself. 

These limbs but fit it on a single side, 

Their utmost only half what it would have. 

And now, athrill with spirit-arms that stretch 
Up toward the heavens and onward toward heaven’s 
love, 

My balanced being had embraced in you 
That other side. We are not two, but one. 

And — think — to part two factors of one life 
Is murder — not of body but of spirit. 

The Aztec God , iv., 1. 
parts vs. whole {see suggestions) 

And then, how would I tear her traits apart; 

And pluck the petals from each budding grace 
And hope its naked stem some trace would show, 
Too void of beauty, to suggest again 
The bloom and sweetness of the life I loved. 

Alas, but while I wrought for this alone, 

How would her virtues but the more unfold ! — 

Like God’s own glory flowering in the skies, 

That those detect who would not find it there, 

But, when they test the stars, have dealt with light. 

Ideals Made Real , xlii. 
passion {see anger, lust, and impetuous) 

You and I and all, 

If passion suddenly o’erflood our will, 

Should just as quickly our quick words recall. 

Thus love may seem our life’s controller still. 

A Life in Song: Daring , lxxii. 

PAST, OUR, AS INFLUENCING OUR FUTURE 

Ah, if the past must always cope 
With future joys for which we hope, 

How vain the aims that make their quest 
A life that merely shall be blest, 


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And slight earth’s meed of lowly sweets 
For purple heights and golden streets ! 

Faith fads that merely waits below. 

Dreams after death would bring but woe 
Without remember’d love that blest 
The soul before it found its rest. 

My Dream at Cordova. 
PATHOS (. see MUSIC EXPRESSING GRIEF) 
PATHS 

I may not fit 

The world I live in. Did the Christ fit his? 

Could any man walk straight in paths of earth, 
Nor trespass on some crooked paths of others? 

Dante , hi., i. 

PATIENT 

And you , my brother ? Such a patient man ? 

.... Oh, patient ! When a fire has been kept in 
For eighteen years, blame not its blazing out, 
Thank God it did not wholly blast the fool 
Whose fumbling fouled it — thought it had no life. 
The villain ! if I only could be sure 
He would be better for the punishment ! 

Columbus , hi., i. 
patriot ( see progress) 

The earth’s Creator made this earth for man, 

And promised heaven to those who used it right ; 
And heirs of heaven should follow none whose ban 
Prevents their moving onward toward the light. 
Why serve a king preventing this? or nation? 

The patriot’s home is where his duties be. 

Why serve a church? — God’s promise of salvation 
Is not of peace on earth through fear of priests men 
see. A Life in Song: Serving , LI. 

PEDANTRY, ARTISTIC 

Increased intelligence tends to increase not only 
intellectual activity but also pedantry. The artistic 
expression of pedantry is imitation. 

Art in Theory , hi. 
PENETRATION OF A WOMAN 
Unfortunate man! he had forgotten that he had 
been dealing with the members of a sex whose penetra- 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


28 3 


tion is so keen as to require alone the glancing of an 
eye or the waving of a finger in order to detect the 
inmost secret of the most secretive soul’; from whom the 
springs of speech may burst and flow unceasingly in 
answer to a gesture slight as that which, of old, nerved 
the arm of Moses at Massah. 

Modern Fishers of Men , x. 

PENETRATION THROUGH SENSIBILITY 

There are souls on earth 
With senses all so fine and penetrant 
That no thoughts in a kindred soul can lie 
So deeply hidden that they stand not naked. 

Dante , n., I. 

PENS AND SCRIBBLERS 

Is a goose, like all those literary cacklers. But he 
can be plucked ; and a goose’s quill {taking a pen from 
table at left of mantel) may make a useful pen. Only 
have pens enough in this world, and you can take in all 
the sheep-heads. If one doesn’t belong to them asses 
who are taken in by the Morning Journal , he belongs 
to them Astors who are taken in by the Evening Post. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl , I. 

PEOPLE GUARDED BEST BY PEACE 

In kingdoms men may fight to guard the king; in 
states like ours they fight to guard the people. He 
guards them best who best wards off all fighting. 

Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 

PEOPLING, BY THE VICIOUS 

.... This land needs peopling. 

.... And will need it more, 

If Spain send more of those vile wretches here. 

We all may be killed off. 

. . . . And rightly so. 

.... Had I my way, a brute forever kicking 
Against the law should go in bit and bridle; 

Ay, ay, to see a surgeon too. A touch 
Of horse-play — there were cuttings that would cure him 
And all his kind. The best should let their land 
Be peopled only by the best. Columbus , v., I. 

PERQUISITES 

.... What perquisites? 


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.... The kind that make us call 

A public man “His Honor,” lest the world 
Might fail to recognize it, if not labeled. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 

PERSEVERANCE 

The deed that best 
Proves each man’s workmanship is what he is. 

If God be the eternal, he who shows 

Eternal perseverance falls not far 

From fellow-craft with Him. Columbus , n. f 1. 

PERSEVERANCE, LACK OF 

The hand that drops the hoe, when one has merely 
dropped the seed, may reap no harvest. 

The Two Paths , iv. 

PETS, WOMEN AS MEN’S 

.... The world has grown, and women with it. 
.... Let them — unless they grow away from their 
own nature ; or, say, from ours. 

.... A shame to have them grow! A woman 
wants a pet. She gets a child. A man has like wants, 
and he gets a wife; and pets, if wives or children, show 
no sense to keep on growing, if they can avoid it. 

Tuition for her Intuition , 1. 
PETULANCE 

What? — you call him great? — 

Mere bluffer of some baby brawls in Florence? 
The flimsiest nerve can fret to feel a flea. 

Dante , I., 1. 

PHILOSOPHY 

Now shall those of all opinions all each other’s truth 
descry, 

While philosophy supported by what all who think 
supply,— 

Pillars this, and pillars that side, grounded well, and 
high and wide, — 

Shall a grander temple rear than all man’s art could 
e’er provide, 

Where the saint and sage together at the shrine of 
faith shall bend, 

And the love that lights their life to all the ends of 
earth extend. A Life in Song: Watching , xvm. ' 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


285 


Of late, when I am all alone, 

I try to make the tests my own 
That wise Philosophy has known. 

My questioning thought to satisfy, 

With eager soul but patient eye, 

I search in every moving thing, 

To find, at last, its hidden spring. 

I fancy it is fire or air 

Or mind itself so conjuring there. 

I press against the window pane, 

Ask — feels my nerve? or feels my brain? 

What is it joins my sense and soul? 

Is it the Absolute’s control? 

Or is it faith? or is it aught 
Beyond the ebb and flow of thought? 

Am I, who muse thus, made to be — 

Responsible in no degree 

The vagrant wave of some vast sea? 

Or am I more than most men deem, — 

Are forms that round about me gleam, 

Things not substantial as they seem, 

But only phantoms of a dream? 

If so, if not, can men, forsooth, 

With all their searching, find the truth? 

Or do their eyes, approaching near 
The grandeur sought, with vision blear 
See all things falsely looming here? — 

Then flashes right, as lightnings glance? 

Or dawns it o’er some dozing trance? 

Shall one know more when earth is done? 

Reach misery? or oblivion? 

Or through some mystic, spiral way 
A Babel mount, and there survey 
An earth become a heaven for aye? 

Idem , Doubting , xxxiv. 
phrases {see words) 

Can human phases fully satisfy 
Divine requirements? Let men only sigh 
For God as Father in the home above, 

Or as the earthly Son whose life was love, 

Or as the Spirit sent to woo the soul; 

Still may the truth, though not all known, control, 


286 


A POET'S CABINET 


Howe’er their lips may limit and confine it, 

Their whole lives, while they struggle to divine it. 

Idem , Seeking , liv. 

PHYSICAL {see BODIES, FLESH, FRAME) 
PHYSICAL CHARM OF SLEEPING WARRIORS 

How beautiful ! What flowers 
To bloom amid the desert of the storm ! 

What glow of vigor in their fair, round limbs, 

Ay, how their colors warm this cold-hued air! — 
Can they be wounded? — dead? — Oh, cruel man, 
When spirits of the sunlight guise in flesh 
And fringe the halo of the sunshine round them, 
Have we so much to cheer us on the earth, 

We can afford destruction to the frames 
That form fit settings of a light so dear? 

The Aztec God , I. 

PHYSICAL VS. MENTAL PROWESS 

Praise not the spears that split the foeman’s mail, 

But praise the brain whence came the skill that aimed 
them. Dante, I., 2 . 

PHYSICIAN 

Beside him sat another, all whose face 

Bore marks of patience, train’d by years of care. 

His glasses, lifted oft with easy grace, 

Great coat, large pockets, and abundant hair 
Marked him — “physician,” one whose calm, wise 
air 

Can bid the raging fever sink to rest; 

And turn to smiles his patients’ weary stare, 

While children wonder at his bottle-chest, 

And how a still pulse tells him just what pill is best. 

A Life in Song: Daring , xxxii. 

PICTURE GALLERY 

All the halls had pictured walls, of brightest hues 
which, far away, 

Stream’d like oriflammes of dawn before a march of 
coming day. Idem, Dreaming , xxxii. 

PIETY 

Your tastes are not religious? — Mine are not, 

If by religion you mean piety, — 

Religion’s brew, froth’d bubbling to be seen. 


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But how is it beneath the surface? 

Ideals Made Real , xxxvii. 

PIGMIES 

Pigmies, did one plod with them, might give 
A little common man a chance of greatness. 

Dante , I., 2. 

PILGRIM 

Once I saw a pilgrim, treading o’er a thorny desert 
wide; 

And I saw his face grow brighter, as he dash’d his tears 
aside. 

On and on, though stumbling often, with a gaze intent 
he sped, 

While behind his path grew plainer from the blood his 
wounds had shed. 

Then he fell, and sweetly fainting said he now no more 
would roam ; 

And with smiles had left his body, sure the soul would 
journey home. 

Ah, I felt a joy so cloudless must forebode a coming 
day, 

At whose break like morning vapors all the shades of 
life give way. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xxvm. 

PIONEER IN THOUGHT 

He push’d for the light ; and grew old and hoar 
Ere one whom he knew had begun to explore, 

Or seek what he sought. Alone in the van, 

He had fail’d of aid had he thought it in man. 

Unveiling the Monument. 

PISA, ITALY 

We took the train at Florence, we, — 

The day was warm and pleasant. 

The town of Pisa would we see. 

No time was like the present. 

Anon we climb’d the Leaning Tower, 

Dropt something down, and sat an hour; 

And then the grand Baptistry door 
They swung for us; and, o’er and o’er, 

We made its domed rotunda roar, 

To echo back our joking. 


288 


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We set our pockets jingling, we, 

To make our guide a crony, 

Saw the cathedral, paid a fee, 

And ate some macaroni, 

Then feasted on an outside view 
Of all three buildings, yet so new; 

Then bought, in alabaster wrought, 

Some models of them; then we sought 
The Campo Santo, where we thought 
About the dead, while smoking. 

We took the train at sunset, we, 

And while we left the station, 

Extoll’d the land, “How much to see! 

How grand this Roman nation! 

Our own, how mean! — no works of art!” 

We strove to sigh, but check’d a start 
And cried, “How home-like!” o’er and o’er. — 
What thrill’d us thus? — alas, it bore 
No hint from art; we heard once more 
A frog, near by us, croaking. 

Our Day in Pisa . 

PITY AND LOVE 

Pity is but a sadder kind of love — 

.... No love at all. But as a motive to it — 
A door to open, — why complain of it, 

If only opening where we wish to go? 

Cecil the Seer , m., i. 
PLAINS VS. MOUNTAINS 

Oh, some may praise the plain! It has its use 
For plow and reaper, railway and canal; 

But all that human hand could ever plant 
Or thought invent, or energy transport 
Could never, through long ages, bring together 
What here were gathered in a few short hours, — 
A wealth of mound and meadow to suffice 
For many a county, all rolled up in one, 

A hundred miles of surface in a score, 

A score of climates in a single mile, 

And all the treasury of plant or soil 
From half a continent arrayed against 
The slopes that flank a solitary valley. 



I mean,” I breathed out cautiously, “to write 
A tale of love; and I have planned the tale 
To open here.” 


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Who says there are no wiser views of life 
Where every view displays a wider range? 

More blest a decade spent in scenes like this 
Than ages in some never-ending plain. 

Grey lock . 

PLANS VS. PERSONALITY 

I plead, too, for myself; 
And tell my plans that you may know myself ; 

Not holding that I stand above you, friend. 

Nay, nay; I oft feel worthy scarce to touch 
Your fingers’ tips, or stand erect and taint 
The level of the air you breathe in; nay, 

I would not judge your life; would only crave, 

When we have so much else in sympathy, 

That holy state where two souls, else at one, 

Would both be God’s. — Ah, could you thus be mine? 

Ideals Made Real , xxxvi. 

PLAY, THE, OF LIFE 

The forms we see are puppets of a play, 

A dull play too ! Though seek what pulls the string, 
No longer is it dull. A button breaks, 

A veil falls off 

.... Too bad to hope for that ! 

. . . . Too bad, if lives be bad! If not, too good! 
Some things that on the outside seem profane, 

Upon the inside may be sacred. Cecil the Seer } 1. 
All should watch the play, and not forget 
That they themselves are part of it. Idem. 

PLAY, OF THOUGHT 

Our thoughts are children that must play to grow. 

Dante , 1., 1. 

play vs. PAY 

Oh, happy days of youth! when empty sport 
Of mere imagination — fancied game — 

Could fill the hunter’s pouch to overflowing! 

Ay, how much better than the days of age — 

Alas, I fear it, too, of modern youth 
For whom, so rich in matter, poor in mind, 

We manufacture implements of play 
That clip at fancies till they all fit facts, 

Plane joys to toys, and level games to gain, 


19 


290 


A POETS CABINET 


Till every pleasure palls that fails to pay 
In scales that rate life’s worth by what it weighs 
When all the spirit’s buoyancy is lost. 

West Mountain. 

PLAYS AND PLAYERS 

My tales, pour’d forth to voice my loneliness 
In echoing talk and song, were framed in plays, 
And then were phrased in music; and, in time, 
Arose like sighings of a human wind 
Above a human sea, while, all about, 

There swept, like surgings of a rhythmic surf, 

The shifting scenes and singers of the stage. 

Ideals Made Real , lxvi. 

PLAYS, THEIR EFFECT ON IMAGINATION 

Our thoughts are roused far less by what we know 
than what we fail to know; and once aroused, they are 
kinetoscopic. The pictures in the play are played 
again, a thousand times within imagination till all one’s 
world of action, like a film, fills with the impress of the 
inward image. Humph! nature’s life repeats the 
thoughts of God no more than human life the thoughts 
of man. The Two Paths , hi. 

PLAYTHING, NOT A THING TO WORK 
.... Most girls about here are American. 

.... What difference does that make? 

.... They have learned to look out for themselves. 
.... Afraid to work here? 

.... Not for themselves, but for their reputation. 
You know that sports and playthings go together. 
Our men are mostly sports. Few families want a 
plaything when they want a thing to work. 

On Detective Duty , n. 

PLAYTHINGS, PEOPLE USED AS 
The women in her set are just as bad as the men. 
For them all the world is a playground and all the men 
and women in it only playthings. One fact that they 
think they know with certainty is this — that the more 
poor girls they can get a son of theirs to fall in love 
with, the more likely they are to get him to marry a 
rich girl that he’s not in love with. 

What Money Can't Buy , ill. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


291 


PLEAS 

From such lips pleas, 

Like fragrance from the flowers upon a shrine, 
Might bring an answer. I will trust in you. 

The Aztec God , 1. 
PLEASURE OF THE VEINS 

* . . • To think 

That all this glowing blood within these veins 
Should be spilled out, before my soul has drunk 
The pleasure that is in them. 

.... When thus drunk, 

The veins will be exhausted, have no stock 
To treat the sense with longer; and the soul, 
Intoxicated with the joys of earth, 

Will be too heavy weighed to rise above them. 

Idem , iv., I. 

POEMS 

True poems hold the truth as gems the light, 
When rightly polished drawing to their depth 
All that is luminous in earth or heaven; 

And thence reflect- it not alone but flash it ; 

And not till all light go, can lose their brilliance. 

Dante , 11., 1. 

POEMS, THEIR EFFECT ON THE READER 
To lift the lives of common men, it is, 

That poems make the common seem uncommon, 
Their richest boon, believe me, that which brings 
To him who reads an inward consciousness 
Of oneness with the spirit that indites them, 

And its own oneness with the loftiest spirit. 

Idem , 1., 1. 

POEMS, THEIR TESTIMONY IN PAST AND FUTURE. 

In searching through the pathways of the past, 
What guide men better in their task than poems? 

. . . . But how about the future? 

. . . . ’T is in them 

One reads the most of that which is to come. 

. . . . And in the present, too? 

. . . . In it, not that 

Which is but should be, is the poet's theme, 

And he who thinks it thinks the thought of God. 

Idem , 11., 1. 


292 A POETS CABINET 

POEMS, WRITING THEM 
I “love to write”? You near the truth. 

I love to talk, as well ; 

And poems breathe a part, forsooth, 

Of what the soul would tell. — 

Ay, ay, the soul. For it how meet 
That those we love should see — 

Not poems — but the poem sweet 
That all one’s life would be! 

The Poet's Reason. 

POET AND POEM 

. . . . A poet like a poem is a product. 

. . . . I thought him born, not made. 

. . . . And why not both? 

Let nature frame a man to feel. He thinks 
Of what he feels. He feels what touches him. 

The substance of his thought and feeling then 
Is what experience has brought near to him. 

Dante , I., i. 

POET, HAS TRAITS OF BOTH SEXES 
He seemed a woman; now he seems all man. 

.... And both are fit in one ordained to be 
A representative of all things human. 

If he by nature be a poet, then 
He should by nature be in substance that 
Which art demands of him in semblance. 

.... We should go home. 

. . . . What for? 

.... To put on kilts, 

And show ourselves half women. 

. . . . Nay, without that, 

My Dino, you can prove your womanhood; 

For who but women take all words to heart, 

And think each point we make must point toward 
them? Idem, I., i. 

POET, MUST STUDY THE TRUTH 
When born with souls like harps the Muse would play, 
What better can men do than toil to keep 
Their thoughts and feelings close in tune with truth? 
For this will tax them wholly. They, who try, 

With those few strings that fate has given to them. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


293 


To play all parts of all the orchestra 

Will help the play of no part. Ideals Made Redly Lin. 

poet, the ( see rhymes) 

The soldier and the statesman are the state’s, 

And all the pageantry that can augment 

The dignity of office and of power 

Befits them, as the king his robe and crown. 

Not so the poet. He is all mankind’s, 

Akin to both the humble and the high, 

The weak and strong. Who most would honor him 
Must find in him a brother. He but strives 
To make the truth that he would speak supreme, — 
Truth strongest when the simplest, needing not 
The intervention of pretentious pomp, 

Plumed with vain symbols of authority 
To make men keep their distance. 

A Life in Song : Prelude . 

POET, THE DEAD 

His voice has join’d that choir invisible 
Of seers and singers who have pass’d away, 

Which oft, in moments when earth’s din is hush’d, 
Sends back o’er infinite depths a spirit’s call, 

Whose inspiration subtly wakes to life 
Whatever welling from the soul may swell 
The stream of truth that flows from each for all 
Toward that far distant light where heavenly hues 
Presage the dawning of the perfect day. I demy Finale ~ 
POETRY 

Oh what were life without the worth 
Of ideality, — 

Its home, heaven’s halo round the earth; 

Its language, poetry. 

The world of deeds whose armor gleams 
May light the path to right 

Far less than rays that rise in dreams, 

And days that dawn at night. 

God’s brightest light illumes the soul. 

That light this life denies 

Till earth’s horizons lift and roll 
Like lids from opening eyes. 

The Poet's Lesson. 


294 


A POETS CABINET 


POETRY, AN INTERPRETER OF SPIRIT 

You would say 

One cannot see the spirit save through forms. 

Yet who can see through forms, except as these 
Obscure the spirit? . . . 

Our king was right to bid us use our eyes, 

Yet not believe that what we saw was all. 

And what we cannot see, yet feel exists, 

We cannot think of, save as we imagine. 

And so the phase that best reports the spirit 
Is that of poetry, — so said our king. 

The Aztec God , iv., I. 

POETRY, EFFECTS OF READING IT 
At times in silence is the volume read ; 

At times aloud, by one who while he reads, 

With cheeks aglow beside the brightest lamp, 
Charms every listener, e’en the sage whose head 
Will nod and dream, and then awake again; 

Nor find within the volume less to praise 
Because it chiefly spell-bound holds the young. 

In them the friction of the flying rhymes 
Oft fires imagination to a glow, 

Through which the spirit gazes on a world 
That bright aureolas of circling thoughts 
Robe in celestial beauty not its own, — 

A world that makes men wistful, and inspires 
A purpose in their souls to image forth 
In their real life a life that is ideal. 

A Life in Song: Finale. 

For then the book is open’d, leaf on leaf 
Unfolding there like petals of a rose, 

A southern rose far sent to northern vales 
Not freed from fingers yet of frozen streams, — 

A rose that with its odor brings a thought 
Of bright blue skies, and trees deep-draped in green 
And air so thick with fragrant warmth that all 
Its thrilling tissues quiver visibly 
O’er flowers reflecting back the choicest rays 
That sunlight showers upon them from above. — 

Ah, like these thoughts more fragrant than itself, 
Through which this rose recalls another world 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


295 


Of beauty and delight beyond the haze 
Of blue horizons walling our world in, 

Come sweet suggestions opening with the leaves 
That fill the poet’s volume, widening all 
The spirit’s range of sight and sympathy, 

And making e’en the humblest life appear 
To be, indeed, the noble thing it is. Idem. 

POETRY, ITS VALUE 

The value of the contribution of poetry, in all cases, 
is exactly proportioned to the light with which it 
illumines facts in connection with the process of trans- 
ferring them to the region of fancy. 

Introduction to The Aztec God. 
POETRY, MAKING 
Making poetry is practising 
The language of the spirit. I should like 
To learn to speak it altogether. Dante , 111., 1. 

POETRY, WHAT IT CONTAINS 

There came a volume; and within it, lo, 

As by-gone glories of the summer’s life 
Rest focus’d and imprinted in warm hues 
Of autumn leaves, so in this volume’s leaves 
Lay all the glory of the poet’s life, 

His imprint of the soul. 

A Life in Song : Finale. 
POETS 

Your humming bees may sip the sweets they need 
From every flower; and why not humming poets? 
.... They were not made to sting, nor souls for 
stinging. 

The poets are not lesser men but greater; 

And so should find unworthy of themselves 
A word or deed that makes them seem less worthy. 

Dante , 1., 1. 

In the vague light of ages old 
The poets were the first who told 
The truths to make late logic bold. 

A Life in Song: Doubting, xvm. 

*T was not the first time life has proved that poets 
Are fools who judge their fancies to be facts. 

Dante, hi., 1. 


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POETS AND PRIESTS 

You know, in ancient times, it was the poets, 

Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea, 

Revealed the truth. The priests could but repeat it. 

Idem , hi., 2. 

poet’s brain 

I knew him when a boy, a poet then, 

With brain on fire to learn, aye glowing like 
A gilder’s cauldron, so the crudest thought 
That reach’d it from a neighbor’s lip or book 
Came from it glittering like a precious thing. 

A Life in Song: Note, 1. 
poet’s meaning, and a maid’s 
Two things a wise man never boasts about, — his 
probing fully to their depth a poet’s meaning, or a 
maid’s, — the sweeter poem of the two. 

The Little Twin Tramps , 11. 
poet’s models 

And the poet’s models. 
They bring us dies, when our ideas glow, 

To leave their impress and remain ideals. 

Dante , 1., 1. 

POETS, THEIR IDEALITY 

You think, 

You poets, you are called to testify 
To what incites you from within, and so 
The less you take from outside life the better? 

Idem , 11., 1. 

POETS, THEIR IRRESPONSIBILITY 

You poets wing your words 
Without the least conception where they wend, 
Like birds with broken feet that keep on flying 
From simple inability to perch. Idem , 1., 1. 
poet’s themes 

Would the poet’s themes 
Themselves were worthier! Then they less might 
need 

The lyre of fancy to give charm to fact : 

Enough of sweetness might attend reports 
Of footfalls really heard, and deeds perceived, 
Impelled by sweet desire. A Life in Song: Prelude . 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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.... And what, pray, is it all about? 

.... Not hard to guess. I think, — most likely 
what people all think most about? 

.... What’s that? 

.... Themselves. 

.... He said true poets, they always think what 
most men think. 

.... Yes, poets of his kind! He meant, they 
write it out, perhaps. 

.... Oh, yes. They right it out when wrong. 
That’s what he meant. 

.... Humph! — Revolutionary? — is meant to 
turn things round? 

.... (beginning to dance) . Oh, yes — Turns me. 

The Little Twin Tramps, 1. 

POLICEMEN 

When suns begin to rise, the thieves fly down some- 
where, the angels up; but the policemen keep their 
places. The watch of their blue forms on earth is 
constant as the blue in heaven, and, for the just, their 
stars are just as bright as its are. Idem, iv. 

POLITE, TOO 

A man too polite is like a floor too polished, — is apt 
to make you slip up, unless you can save yourself 
because, beforehand, you have got hold of something 
about him. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl, 11., 2. 

POLITENESS AND DISHONESTY 

In a world of donkeys, all trying to hide their ears 
in a lion’s hide that hides nothing, how can one be 
wholly honest yet wholly polite? You see dishonesty 
is to politeness what Latin is to a doctor, or pedantry 
is to a teacher, or lace to a last year’s ball dress. We 
all see through it; and yet we all say nothing about it. 

The Ranch Girl, 1. 

POLYGAMY 

Their sex’s claims 

Are well acknowledged, as I think, by him 
Who plights his whole soul’s faith to one of them. 
Why, I would not insult these women so 
As to suggest that love for one alone 


298 


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Did not fill my whole heart to overflowing. 

You seek here room for more? — Then you mistake. 

The Aztec God , ill. 

POPULAR 

Oh, to be popular, just let one be 
Abulge with promise, pledging everything. 

Till time present him his protested bills, 

The world will fawn and paw him like a cur 
To do his bidding. Promise is a flea : 

It makes us itch; but fools us, would we catch it. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 

POPULARITY 

To you our suitors all present their best. 

You get the diamonds as if you were noon; 

While I, I get but coals. They never touch, 
Unless to burn or else to blacken me. 

Haydn , xxi. 

POSITION, INFLUENCE OF 

.... I did not think I had such influence. 

.... Nor does the sun. It never thinks at all ; 
Yet keeps the whole world whirling — by its light? — 
No, no, — by its position. Cecil the Seer , 1. 

Truth’s position aids its mission, men will serve his 
voice 

Who commands what most they treasure. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming, xxxiv. 

One whose position lifts him where the crowd 
Look up to him should never use the station 
To drag up low down brutes. Dante , 1., 2. 

POSITION, KEEPING ONE’S 

.... You must remember, dear, what’s due to our 
position. 

.... What? 

.... I think your uncle here could tell you, — to 
keep from slipping down from it, to pay it the respect 
we owe it ; and not let people none respect stand here 
beside us. 

.... None respect? 

.... None in society, I mean — the kind we go in. 
So, for it, we must be careful. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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.... Yes, I see. T 

.... We always must be full of care, — when poor, 
for fear the rich will harm us; when rich, for fear ’twill 
be the poor. The Little Twin Tramps , 11. 

POSSESSION BY EVIL 

Why, one might almost visit hell to-day 
In safety, — so deserted by the fiends 
Called out to take possession here of you ! 

Dante , 11., 2. 

POSSESSIONS, HAVING NONE 
Don’t you fear! Men squeeze a lemon for its juice. 
There’s nothing one can ever have that always keeps 
him quite so safe as having nothing. 

The Little Twin Tramps , II. 
posthumous fame ( see fame and monument) 
Those heroes of old Rome appear’d not gods 
Till all were dead and veil’d from mortal eyes. 

Haydn , vii. 

POWER, BEHIND THE DEVIL 

The power 

That handles Kraft can make that devil spin 
Like potter’s clay to work out his designs. 

Cecil the Seer , 111., 1. 

PRACTICAL VS. SPECULATIVE 

If, man, your metaphysics be not yet 
Beyond all physics, pray you, cure yourself; 

Be more material; or material powers 
Will alienated grow, and so forget 
And count you out in all their reckonings; 

And you who are of earth, will earth own not; 

And you who would be heaven’s, will heaven own not. 
To own yourself and only own yourself, 

Is worse than serfdom that has earn’d a smile, 

Though but from wrinkling cheeks of sham good-will. 

Ideals Made Real , liv. 

PRAYER 

Ay, men feel, that, bow’d in prayer, 
Not with flesh and blood they wrestle, but with those 
that rule the air; 

Nor will vanish thence till vanquish’d by that Spirit, 
whose control 


300 


A POETS CABINET 


Rolls the star, and waves the sea, and works the most 
self-govern’d soul ; 

And can send, for rare communion, cloth’d in raiment 
all too white 

For the ken of common vision, those who force the 
wrong to flight. A Life in Song: Dreaming, xxiv. 
PREACHING 

Who rails at preaching proves his need of it. 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2. 

PREJUDICE 

Moods, whose range, 

Is girt by customs past (which could alone 
Prejudge thought’s present range), fit prejudice; 

Haydn, LI. 

PREJUDICE VS. PROOF 

There are some things that neither you nor I can 
explain. One is why people always prefer to be 
governed by their own prejudices rather than by 
others’ proofs. What Money Can't Buy, 11. 

PRETENDERS 

No longer they seek for the right, too vain 
To ask it, and make their ignorance plain. 

No longer they struggle for love that lends 
No more than frailty borrows from friends. 

No longer they live in the light, but trust 
Disguises that doom them to garbs of dust. 

Oh earth, tho’ royal the robes you bring, 

They stifle the spirit to which they cling! 

Love and Life, xix. 
PRETENSE 
When only a boy, 

To know a little is all our joy. 

But alas, for a man, 

His trials begin as Adam’s began! 

Like him, we all would be gods, and boast 
Of knowledge and power to the uttermost. 

When comes the day 
Revealing how small 
Is the sphere that life has allotted us all, 

We choose a way 
To rise or to fall; 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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We accept from above, 

And use with love 
Our partial dower, 

And learn to master and make it a power; 

Or we boast of what 
Our souls have not, 

And turn from the frank, fair ways of truth 
To the ways that avoid it, and think, forsooth, 
That nothing can shatter a sham defense 
That hides our hollowness in pretense. 

Idem , xviii. 

priest {see love as source of law) 

One time, when, lonely, I to Christ had knelt 
I rose to seem not lonely; I was His, 

He mine. I vow’d to live then but for Him, 

To break away from every cord of Earth, 

And make my life accordant with his own. 

Not only would I think the truth, but yield 
Each grain in all my being to the truth, 

And sow in wildest wastes, where all should germ 
In generations growing toward the good. 

Ideals Made Real , vi. 
A novice yet, though, like St. Paul, 

To will was present with me; to perform 
I found not how; but, on performance bent, 
Within a chancel chanting with the choir, 

I stood before an altar, half the day, 

And half before my books, with cravings pale 
For church and stole and sermons of my own. 

Idem. 

A priest — a man, forsooth, 
Who differs from the rest of men in clothes. 

In wearing worn-out habits, which the need 
And progress of our times have cast aside; — 
Ay, wearing them o’er body, mind, and soul. 

Haydn , LI. 

And go you as a student, 
Nor clad so like a priest, for whom all earth 
Will don some Sabbath-day demean; go free 
To find the man, hard by his work, at home. 

Ideals Made Real , vu. 


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A POETS CABINET 


God started man; man’s deviltry the priest. 

For one, I like the thing God started best. 

Columbus , I., i. 
PRIEST, WHEN ARBITRARY 

Priests 

Are not ordain’d for work in every sphere. 

A prince dispenses, does not mine, his gold. 

A priest administers the truth reveal’d; 

What power has he to delve divine designs, 

Or minister dictation, in the spheres 

Where God, to train our reason, leaves us free? 

Haydn , xxvi. 

I tell you this is curs&d selfishness; 

I tell you it is downright sacrilege! — 

To strain the oceans of the Infinite 
Down through that sieve, man’s windpipe, wheezing out, 
“ I deal the voice of God, I, I, the priest. ” Idem, xxv. 
PRIESTESS 

But I like to unfold to her all my plans 
For the courage she makes me possess, 

Like a warrior touch’d by a priestess’s hands, 
Foretelling a sure success. 

A Life in Song: Loving , XL. 

PRIESTHOOD 

I see a portion of the heaven of which 
The priesthood holds the key, is on the earth. 

The Aztec God , I 

PRIESTHOOD AND THE IMAGINATIVE MIND 
That fancy thin my own true self reveal’d. 

If spray it were, it left a constant sea 
That heaves and heaves. With moods that move like 
mine, 

So madden’d by traditions, calm’d by dreams, 
Content scarce ever, till at hazard dash’d 
Through ways that lead to sheer uncertainty, 

Where fancy more may seek than matter shows 
In things that are but matter, — what am I 
For life-work such as priesthood, sure in creeds 
And sureties for the soul, whereon may lean 
All weaker faith, with warrant not to bend? 

Ideals Made Real , lii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


303 


PRIESTS OF NATURE 

We mortal men may all be priests, high priests 
Of nature, who may gather in from beasts 
And birds and creeping things, and sky, and earth, 
That which each form reveals of truth or worth, 

And, in our higher natures, find a speech 

To voice the praise that thought can frame for each. 

Can aught on earth give right supremacy, 

Except this priesthood of humanity? 

Where burn the altar-fires that can make pure 
Earth’s wrong and dross, and through their flames 
insure 

True worship for all forms of life or art, 

If not enkindled in the human heart? 

A Life in Song: Seekings xi. 

PRIESTS, WHEN MATERIALISTS 

Nothing like a priest’s grip on a form 
To squeeze the spirit out of it ! 

The Aztec God , 11. 

PRIESTS, WHEN MERCENARY 
I know of priests who judge of gods 
Like altars by their gilding, to whose greed 
One god in hand is worth a score in heaven. 

For every time they kneel to touch their puppet, 

It shakes to sprinkle gold-dust on them. 

Idem , iv., 1. 

PRINCE 

.... A prince 

.... Is mortal 

.... Is a lord of earth ; 

And on the earth he sometimes has the power 
To make a man immortal. Columbus , 1., 1. 

PRINCESHIP 

I reverence the princeship; not the prince 
Who doffs his regal robes, and leaves his throne, 
And lowers his aims and slaves it with mere serfs. 

Haydn , xxv. 

PRINCETON 

Well placed, my Princeton, on the foremost range 
Where Allegheny uplands first appear 
Bent down to greet the sea, bent up to rear 


304 


A POET'S CABINET 


What walls our continent of rock and grange! 

If English sires, too loyal to seek change, 

Their Kingston, Queenston, Princeton founded here, 
It made no Witherspoon nor Stockton fear 
A throne that dared their new land’s rights estrange. 
Nor now shall Princeton, welcoming to her school 
The thought of Europe, find her own less bold 
Because of that which from abroad is drafted. 

Princeton University . 
PROBLEM PLAYS 

. . . This is a problem play; and they themselves 

are problematical. Are mighty few folks in the world, 
I guess, who wouldn’t rush to see their own traits 
prinked and staged, and everybody staring at them. 

.... I wish that no one ever saw such plays but 
those who have already solved the problems. 

.... Why so? 

.... If so, they might not try to solve them in 
their own future. The Two Paths , in. 

progress {see advance, change, and modern) 
Beneath men’s outward lives 
There flows a force whose current, sweeping on, 
Impels to outward good. But if they start 
To gain this good, they oft are driven back; 

And oft must start anew. Through all their lives 
They thus may struggle forward, then draw back, 
And move now here, now there, and half believe, 
Like half the world, that all their deeds are vain; 
Yet must it be that far above this earth, 

Where grander progress courses grander paths 
Than mortals ever dream of, aims that urge 
Men’s hope so vainly to and fro below, 

Are seen to swing the pendulums that turn 
The hands on heaven’s high dials to better times. 

A Life in Song: Prelude. 

Can you deem 

That all the springs that flow to swell the stream 
Of ever-living truth are far away 
As where fair Eden’s first clear water lay? 

Are there no nearer mountain-sides and plains, 
O’erflowing with their stores from present rains? 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


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Is there no rock struck now by prophet’s hands 
To meet in barren fields the new demands 
Of thirsting souls, who find the stream of thought 
Polluted by the debris caught and brought 
From long past ages? 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xlv. 

Never yet an age progress’d, but something wrought 
there stronger still 

In the power that swept it onward than was in a human 
will. 

Never yet a deep desire for light aroused a slumbering 
race, 

But above the heaven was open’d, and the night to 
day gave place. 

Thanks to God for nobler spirits whom the morning 
breezes wake, 

When they bear the tidings forward, that the dawn 
begins to break; 

When they pierce the gloom of forests, and across the 
deserts roam, 

Heralding the truth, enlightening every darkened hu- 
man home. Idem, Watching, xvi. 

Now I see the day before me, when the pageantries of lies 

Which have check’d the march of progress, melt as 
clouds in summer skies. 

Come, divines, and seek the limits of a sect whose 
name ye call — 

Feel for flying shades of darkness. Love has levell’d 
every wall. 

Free in form but bound in feeling, slight in talk but 
strong in deed, 

What the Lord has left to manhood man has left out- 
side his creed. 

Statesmen, come and seek the boundaries of the land 
your people fear’d ; 

Phantom-like the foes conjured there in the night, 
have disappear’d; 

Wealth, and rank, and honor, come, and seek the poor, 
the low, the base, — 

Where are they? — in all about you now the child of 
God ye face. 


20 


3 o6 A POETS CABINET 

More and more give way the barriers: one in feeling, 
one in thought, 

What remains to hinder aught that all aspiring souls 
have sought? 

What are plains and mounts and oceans, what are 
tongues to unity? 

Commerce, customs, institutions, have not all one 
destiny? — 

When the time shall come, a banner by the right shall 
be unfurl’d, 

Where the patriots of the nation shall be patriots of 
the world ; 

And the right shall triumph then in spite of selfish 
men and strong, 

Gog and Magog or the devil, — or conservers of the 
wrong. A Life in Song: Watching , xx. 

PROHIBITION, NOT TRAINING RESISTANCE (see SELF- 
CONTROL and temptation) 

.... Ah, just there, my friend, you hint the canker- 
worm that makes most forms of prohibition rot. The 
old Greeks used to tell about the hydra — could not be 
killed by cutting off one head ; it had so many heads — 
must cut off all. It is not appetites we have to fight, 
but appetite in general — all of it. 

.... And what has that to do with prohibition? 
.... It never can prohibit all that tempts us; 
and what it does prohibit is prevented from train- 
ing in us habits of resisting. 

Tuition for her Intuition , n. 
PROMINENCE OBTAINED BY DEPRIVING OTHERS OF IT 
A king is human ; place is relative ; 

Down honor, and you boost dishonor up. 

Make men in common kneel, and common men 

Stand up like giants. Banish out of sight 

The bright minds, and the dull ones beam like beacons 

Columbus , i., 3. 

PROMISE, A woman’s 

What woman ever cared about her word — 

Her own word or her husband’s? Bless her jaws! 
They have so many words, why care for one word? 

Idem , hi., 1. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


307 


PROMISE, FULFILLING ONE (see VOW) 

Honor helping none and harming self, 

Need never serve the body of a vow 

From which the life to which it vowed has flown. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 


PROMISE, NEEDS A GUARANTEE BEHIND IT 

But your word 

.... Would, like a bank-note, quickly lose its worth 

Were nothing stored behind it, to make true 

The storage it bespeaks. Idem. 

PROMISE, SECURED BY A LIE 

A promise made to suit a lie but cloaks 
Untruth that truth should strip and so show naked. 

Dante , 11., 1. 

PROMISED LAND 

The poet’s is the promised land, — 

Is always promised, but it never comes. 

Idem , 1., 2. 

PROMOTION 

Why blame my soul, because it must be true 
To higher aims and higher influence? 

If, seeking these, this world’s promotion come, 

Let come! I take it then by right divine. 

Cecil the Seer, 1. 

PROPERTY, master’s, VS. WORKMAN’S 
.... The master’s property is all the workman’s 
principle. 

. . . . It is? And who wants principle? 

.... Yourself — enough at least to have some care 
for your own interest. The Little Twin Tramps , 1. 


PROPHECY 

His life was hard, yet seemed a rare romance, 
The sense in thrall, the soul at liberty; 

And, winged beyond his age in its advance, 
What he saw then, we now term prophecy. 

The American Pioneer . 


PROPHET 

Ay, rare, indeed, in that day is his fate, 

If the eye of the prophet — so noble a trait — 
Escape from censure and gibe and hate. 

For an eye like his will a goal pursue 


A POETS CABINET 


308 

So far in advance of his time and its view, 

That only the march of an age, forsooth, 

Can o’ertake the vision he sees in his youth. 

But, oh ! in that age, when it comes, the earth 
Will live in his light and know of his worth. 

And many and many will be the men 
Who move on then, 

And about them find 
The scenes that he in his day divined, 

Who, sure of his presence, will know he is nigh, 
And feel he is leading, and never can die. 

Unveiling the Monument. 

PROPHET, TEST OF A 

My words come true, eh? — One might think they 
would ; 

So few regard them ! It is one sure test 
Of prophets that they prophesy in vain. 

Columbus , v., 2. 


PROPHETIC VISION 
If only once the souls that climb 
So slowly up this mount of time, 

Could, with prophetic vision clear, 

See views that from its peaks appear; 

Then gaze below, where foul mists creep 
Along black waters of the deep, 

Note slippery stones that trip the feet, 

Or slide beneath the indiscreet, 

How closely would they watch and tread 
The narrow, narrow paths ahead ! 

And then, should one a safe way trace 
O’er some supremely dangerous place, 

What could he do, except to try, 

Tho’ plains were wide, and hills were high, 

To make those heed his warning cry, 

Who in the paths behind him moved? 

Though means he chose to some but proved 
His madness and his meanness both 
Which they must hound with many an oath; 
Though he were kill’d where loom’d the danger, 
His corpse might save some coming stranger, 
Who in the stare of death could trace 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


309 


The aims that flush’d his living face. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xix 

PROPOSAL, FOR MARRIAGE, A 
For I would say I loved her, not her aims. 

If then she should prefer her aims to me, 

It would be proof that she could love me not. 

But if she should prefer me to her aims, 

Then surely she could yield her wish to mine. 

Ideals Made Real , xxxiv. 

So, near the sunset of a summer’s day, 

While walking by the lake within the park, 

“I mean,” I breathed out cautiously, “to write 
A tale of love; and I have plann’d the tale 
To open here. In after time, perchance, 

Those minds to whom it proves of interest 
May love to linger here, recalling it. 

Look now — this lake. To gain the full effect 
Of palace, park, and yonder heaven unveil’d, 

One, gazing downward in the water’s depth 
Should note them wash’d of gross reality, 

And — as in art — reflected. With this view 
This tale of mine shall open. First of all, 

Here, in the sunshine near us — at our feet — 

Ay, in the water; ay, friend, here I mean — 

Just underneath us, — mark you, mark you, there, 
The hero, and, beside him, his ideal!” 

Idem , xxxv. 

PROPOSING TO A SWEETHEART 

“And there’s another sphere in life,” he added 
hurriedly, as though he feared that, if he should stop, 
his courage might forsake him — “another sphere, in 
which a woman can do more for one than in this, and 
that is — in the home. What might a home not be, 
could it have you there as its mistress!” 

They walked a little way in silence. Then the girl, 
who had not yet looked up, knelt down on the pave- 
ment of the green-house. They had come to the 
flower that she had taken him there to see. That 
flower .she plucked, and a leaf or two, and then she 
rose and reached up to his button-hole — the one in his 
coat that lay the nearest to his heart — and placed her 


3io 


A POETS CABINET 


gift within it. Then the captain caught her head be- 
tween his hands, and made her look up toward him ; and 
it was not the hot flush on her cheeks that dried the tears 
that trembled in her eyes, nor the smile that was break- 
ing there that shook them off, but the first embrace in 
which she buried her blushing face in the bosom of her 
heart’s true love. Modern Fishers of Men , xvi. 

PROSE 

A poet has to pose, to prose himself 
Sufficiently for some companionship. 

Dante , I., I. 

PROSPERITY 

Wharves and ships that fill’d a harbor, busy streets, 
and market-halls, 

Fruit-red trees, and yellow corn-fields, open mines that 
gemm’d a land, 

And a gay-dress’d throng that drove through winding 
ways to mansions grand. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxxiv. 
PROTECTOR, MAN AS A 

A woman never is as much a woman as when she 
feels that man is her protector ; nor man as much a man 
as when he feels the same. The law works perfectly 
for both. Tuition for her Intuition , ill. 

PROVIDENCE 

We war with Providence, who war with life. 

We seek to mould our own existence out; 

But life, best made, is mainly for us made. 

Each passing circumstance, a tool of heaven, 
Grates by to smooth some edge of character, 

And model manhood into better shape. 

Ideals Made Real f lxxi. 
God guided it and us, alas, 

But how He scorch’d our heaven to pass 
His finger through the skies ! 

Our First Break with the British . 
PROVIDENCE, LEAVING TO 
Why, he had done his duty, sown the seed; 

Then why not leave the rest with Providence? 
.... Fling seed to seas, or bid it root in winds; 
But do not trust your thoughts to Providence. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 31 1 

Their soil is in humanity, nor there 
Spring, grow, or ripen without husbandry. 

Columbus , II., 3. 

PUBLIC SENTIMENT 

These all but echoed back my own soul’s voice; 

And yet, augmented by the voice of all, 

In heeding them, I heeded not myself, 

But something greater, grander than myself. 

For if a single man may image God, 

Then many men who join their partial gifts 
And parted wisdom, — till the whole become 
Not merely human but humanity’s, — 

May watch our ways and keep them circumspect 
With eyes that often wellnigh stand for His 
Who still more fully in mankind than man 
Rules over truth in each through truth in all. 

Why term me slave, then, when I serve my kind? — 
Through serving it, I best may serve, as well, 

My godlier self! — Let general thought take shape; 
What better can incarnate sovereignty? 

What stir to nobler dreams or grander deeds? 

The soul in reverence may kneel to it, 

Yield all to it. — So may my neighbors reign, 

And I may be their slave, yet own myself; 

And deify, while I defy my pride! 

Ideals Made Real , lxiii. 

PUBLIC SENTIMENT, IN MEN AND WOMEN 

A man but in his public thought 
Antiphonals the public sentiment. 

A woman does it in her private thought ; 

And woe to lovers who dare say their say 
Without a little clique that, echoing it, 

Can make it seem, at least, a little public. 

Columbus , hi., 1. 

PUBLICITY, A CURE FOR SOCIAL EVILS 

And ought to swear 
To level every wall that can shut out 
The sun that brings to light man’s every act, — 
The only weapon that can ward off ill 
From souls allured to wrong through secrecy. 

The Aztec God , iv., 1. 


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pulpit {see stage) 

Ah, could they all who plead with men for truth, 
Meet face to face convictions that are strong, 

How strong would grow the pleaders, and how wise! 

No longer, fill’d with fear lest prejudice 

Should flee the shock of unaccustomed thought, 

Would coward-caution hush to voiceless death 

The truth that breathes within. Earth would not hold 

One pulpit echoing like a parrot-cage 

The thought- void accents of a rote-learn’d creed; 

Nor heed one preacher like a cell-bound monk 
Who, knowing men as boys in school know flowers, 
Not as they grow, but pluck’d and press’d in books, 
Would rather save the pictures of the soul 
Sketch’d on some small cell wall, than one live soul 
In whose free thinking God depicts himself. 

A Life in Song: Note 4. 

PULL, A 

Some men, if any matter ever go against them, are 
always looking for a man behind it. The world to 
them is just one big machine — a puppet-show; the 
thing comes out ahead that you or I have given the 
strongest pull. On Detective Duty , 11 

PUNISHMENT, EFFECT OF UNJUST {see JUSTICE) 

You fail to see the danger? Why, their tribe 
Will massacre us all ; if not, your vices 
Will bring you hell here, even while you live. 

. . . . You know my story — was condemned to death — 
For nothing, though — and then the court decreed, 
Instead of this, that I should come out here; 

And if I make it hell, it seems to me, 

In hell is where they want me. Columbus , v., 1. 

PURE 

And coming softly down from above, 

And crossing a corridor clothed in white, 

I saw my love, — 

A form as pure as the moon’s pure light, 

A form so pure that the night’s dark air 
Seem’d the robe most fitting for me to wear; 

And I shrank to my gloom, and left her there. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xii. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


3i3 


PURE, IN SPIRIT 

Oh, nothing of good can life secure 
Save when the springs of life are pure! 

When this they be, 

Their earliest vent, 

As mad and free 

As a mount’s cascade, may all seem spent 
In dashing away 
To spatter and spray, 

But yet may go 
In an onward flow 

To flood wide valleys where buds are elate, 

And fruit is forming, and harvests wait. 

Love and Life , xliv. 
PURE SOUL, MAKING SURROUNDINGS PURE 
Your pure soul 
Breathed such an atmosphere about itself, 

Your very presence could impart an air 
Of sacredness to all brought near to you. 

Cecil the Seer , ii., 2 . 

PURITANIC 

But all began to pray, 

With eyes to duty open wide — 

The Puritanic way. 

The Lebanon Boys in Boston . 
PURITANS 

For they forgot, our lords, 

They dealt with Puritans, 

True sons of those whom Cromwell led, 

Whose right means every man’s; 

Who take their individual ill 
For proof of general pain, 

And, where one prince has made them wince, 
Fight all, that man may reign. Ethan Allen. 
PURPOSES IN LIFE 

All life’s purposes 

Are held like lenses that a soul may use 
To gather in heaven’s light and flash it round 
Upon its world illumin’d ; or, not so, — 

If turn’d on self, — to but inflame and dim 

Its own self-centered vision. Ideals Made Real , lxix. 




A POETS CABINET 


PUZZLES 

I do not understand this. 

.... No; but half 

The interest of life is in its puzzles. 

The Aztec God , II. 

RACE-PREJUDICE 
Clear the air. 

Stand off a white man’s shadow. 

Columbus , v., I. 

RAILWAY 

Escaped from them, his feet approach’d a town 
From which a railway stretch’d invitingly; 

And in its train he soon had sat him down. 

It moved, and filled his mind with ecstasy. 

The hum recall’d his favorite melody. 

The trees wheel’d by like dancers in their flight; 

And, as they whirl’d with mad rapidity, 
Spell-bound, he slept and dream’d all wrought for 
right, 

And made the world they wrought in, beautiful and 
bright. A Life in Song : Daring , xxx. 

rain {see harvesting) 

April’s rain is autumn’s gain. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xli. 
RAKE 

I feign’d a fall in fancied depths of ill, 

And mock’d that I might hear her call me thence; 
And learn’d therein to envy some the rake. 

For what a charm it were to hear — not so? 

That is, if one were vicious, through and through — 
Such pleas for love from lips that aye were pure? 
The very depth of one’s unworthiness 
Would whet such relish for a thing so strange! 

Ideals Made Real t L. 
RANCH EXPERIENCE 

.... The most of the people out here have to hunt 
as much for a thing to see as they do for a thing to eat. 

.... They do? — with the sheep and the cattle 
that keep up their going and coming; and clouds of 
grasshoppers flying, and coyotes and partridges dart- 
ing up out of the rocks and the grasses, and rattle- 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


3i5 


snakes turning to life the very sticks at your feet! 
The most enlivening place I ever set foot in. . . . We 
went over here three miles to visit a prairie-dog town. 
We found such a lovely valley; and, at last, we spied 
three owls. At first I thought they were bird’s nests, 
bushed up on a dead tree’s branches ; but Foodie called 
them watchmen — night watchmen, you know, of the 
dog-town. I wonder whether they guard the dogs 
the most, or haunt them. Well, then, as we passed the 
owls, we pounced, full drive, on the town. The dogs 
were sunning themselves on the tops of their little 
mounds. When Foodie drove in among them, you 
ought to have seen them dodging and darting down to 
their holes. It seemed to me just like charging through 
hills of elephant ants. You do everything here out 
West on a very big scale. The Ranch Girl, 11. 

RANK 

For him who judges manhood by its best 
There is no noblest rank not won by soul, 

No throne worth seeking reached on steps of sod, 
No life that ever can seem wholly blest 
But feels itself a part of that great whole, 

At one with which is being one with God. 

Class and Caste. 

The work that lets 

These common laborers wipe their dirty paws 
Upon one’s coat. 

.... Then take it off. 

.... Ay, ay; 

And grovel at their level? 

.... Does your rank 

Depend upon your coat? — pray heaven that you 
Be born again, a new man and a true one. 

Columbus , v., 1. 

RATIONAL ACTION 

Rational action is to the spirit what self-respect is to 
the body. Pyschology of Inspiration, XI. 

RATIONAL, AS THE SOURCE OF RIGHT, ACTION 

.... Do you expect a girl of my age to be able to 
live like a philosopher, and go through a process of 
argumentation every time that I have to do anything? 


A POETS CABINET 


316 

.... All the minds in the world have to go through 
something of that process. If not, they have not 
attained rationality, which is the one thing that 
separates a human being from a brute. 

.... And if they have not attained it? 

.... To speak plainly, I fail to see why — meta- 
phorically, at least — they shouldn’t go to the devil — • 
either in this world or in the next, and probably in 
both. Where Society Leads , 1 . 

REASON {see HEADS AND HEARTS ) 

Some things that may go wrong 
Are righted by the touch of circumstance. 

.... Most things are righted by the touch of 
reason. 

Without it men are but base tools of passion, 

And all their world here, the abode of brutes. 

Dante , 1., 2. 

Would reason drop the curtain of the eye, 

And dwell in darkness, and be proud of it? 

The Aztec God , 11. 

If one clear truth have cross’d the world’s brink, 
This truth is clear, — 

That all learn here 
Less what to do, than how to think. 

Less what they ought to gain or lose, 

Or feel or say, 

Than how to weigh 

The worth of what they judge or choose. 

And if spirit-life be a life in thought, 

Thought must control 
The reasoning soul 

Before to the wisest life ’t is brought; 

Thought here must learn to know and feel, 

Yet choose the mean 
’Twixt each extreme 
Of dunce or dreamer, sloth or zeal. 

Life’s problem thus may all be solved, 

If far above 
Earth’s truth or love 

Heaven rates high reason’s powers evolved. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


317 


For good can never be lost when sought; 

But joy and pain 
Both turn to gain, 

If spirit-life be a life in thought. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxn. 

Life has taught me, — ■ 

That reason’s God must be a God of reason. 

If so, there lives no right but reason fashions; 

Nor is there aught that should seem right to man 
Yet wrong to reasons fashioned by himself. 

So those who know they own an understanding, 

And know how all things earthly join to train it, 

Yet think of God as all misunderstood, 

Must think with minds whose methods are the devil’s. 

Dante , III., 2. 

REASON AND FORCE 

Beware of strength 
That, like the brute’s, is wielded not by reason. 
Except by reason thought was never forced 
For its own good. Idem , 1., 2. 

REASON IN A FRAY 
A foe deficient in his brain 
Is quicker vanquished than if so in body; 

For he whose reason fails him in the fray 
Fights like a knight unbuckling his own mail. 

Idem , I., 2. 

REASON, NOT HELPED BY ANOTHER’S HAND 

Reason is a weapon never helped by touches of 
another’s hand than his who holds it. 

The Two Paths , ill. 

REASON VS. MEMORY 

Have always heard it, eh? — and most of us 
Commune with reason through our memory; 

And not the work of our own minds we heed, 

But rote-repeated phrases framed by others. 

The Aztec God , iv., 1. 

RECEPTIVITY, THE CONDITION OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 
Though spirit-life be lived in thought, 

Where thought pervades the atmosphere like air, 
What can its measure be, for any mind, 

Save that mind’s receptivity? If so, 


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A POETS CABINET 


When freed from bounds conditioning human thought, 
It is a mind not filled so much as open, 

Where waits not bigotry but charity, 

Although with little learning, that first thrills 
To tides that flow from infinite resources. 

Cecil the Seer , II., 2. 

RECIPROCATION 

The sun may fill with clouds the sky; 

The moon may lift the tide, 

And winds that blow from heaven wash high 
The wave-swept ocean side; 

But all the world keeps whirling round; 

And always, while it hies, 

Fair exhalations, heavenward bound, 

From mead and main arise. 

The sun and moon and wind above 
Move not an unmoved sea; 

The heart that does not heave for love 
Will not be woo’d by me. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxix. 

REFORMERS, UNSEXED 

.... And do you then approve, do you admire 
Lean, short-haired women, and lank, long-haired 
men, 

Exchanging shawls and coats, and stripping life 
Of character to make it caricature? 

.... I do not much admire the straw in spring 
That forms the spread of flower-beds; but beneath 
Sleep summer’s fairest offspring. Cecil the Seer y I. 
REGALIA ( see FORM AND SPIRIT, and RITES) 

When men distrust 
Their own thought or their thought’s authority 
So they disguise it all in robes of office, 

Which only men are bid to honor, then 
I fear they hide what no man ought to honor. 

Dante , II., I. 

REGARD, AWAKENED BY SYMPATHY 
None can command regard from those with whom 
they do not show some sympathy. 

Tuition for her Intuition , ill. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


3i9 


REGENERATION {see CHOICE, CONVERSION, FORMALISTS 
and priest) 

The graft of all true love regenerates. 

Those in whom love is born are born anew, 

And all their family of fancies then 

Bear family traits; those loving, and those not, 

Being wide apart as rainbows and the rain. 

I might be superstitious, but to me 
The temple of my life’s experience 
Had been less sacred, had it held no shrine 
Whereon to heap sweet tokens of my love. 

And all that loom’d around seem’d holier now, 
Illumed by holy lights of memory. 

Ideals Made Real , xliv. 

REINCARNATION (see TRANSMIGRATION) 

.... I thought, 

That, if a soul must live hereafter, why, 

It must have lived before. — You know the Christ 
Did not rebuke those who confessed they thought 
Elias had returned; but, in an age 
When all believed he might return, confirmed them. 
And then our creed — Where can it come to pass, — 
The body’s resurrection? 

. . . . Where? 

. . . . Where but 

In that new earth of Hebrew prophecies? — 

Which would have but misled, had those that heard 
Not had it in their power themselves to be 
Restored to life in that restored estate. 

.... Seems life so bright then? — You would live it 
over? 

. . . . No, no; so sad that I would solve its reason. 

If we have lived before, we all are born 
In spheres to which our own deeds destine us. 

. . . . Not Adam’s? 

. . . . Each one may have been an Adam. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 

. . . . Who ever 

Met mortal yet whose memory could recall 
A former state? 


He might recall the state 


320 


A POET'S CABINET 


Without the circumstance. To know, bespeaks 
Experience. To be born with intuitions 
And insight, is to know. To sun new growth, 

Why should not all be given an equal chance 
Unshadow’d by dark memories of the past? 

.... But if the past were bright? 

.... If wholly so, 

Would one need progress? or could he be cursed 
With deeper woe than thought that could recall, 
Enslaved in flesh, a former liberty? 

Why lure to suicide, that, breaking through 
The lines determining development, 

May plunge the essence down to deeper depths 
There planted till new growth take root anew? 

Idem , ii., 2. 

RELIGION, AND REAL ESTATE 

.... With me religion is the chief 

Consideration. Think how poor our life 
Would be without religion. 

.... Be less rich, 

You think. 

.... Just so; for there is nothing like 

A church to elevate the character 

.... Of real estate. Cecil the Seer , I. 

RELIGION, ATTITUDE OF NATURAL 
. . . . Where were you reared to such impiety? 

. . . . Where sun, moon, stars rained from the blue 
above 

And flowers were fountained through the green below, 
Where lights we knew not what, but they were 
heaven’s, 

Looked down on eyes that looked up from the earth, 
And men, whatever might impel their souls, 

Were guided onward by a goal to mate it. 

.... Ay, and by priests and prophets — Tell the truth 
. ... Yes, there were those who dreamed, and those 
who deemed 

In darkness they saw forms that had been earth’s, 

And heard their words, and they believed it true 
That there was life behind the sights we see. 

But those who stood the highest of the high, 


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SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


321 


And knew our poet-king, were taught to look 
Upon a God beyond the reach of men. 

The Aztec God , IV. 
RELIGION, OF THE SPIRIT 
Not every man that names the name 
That is the Lord’s can enter here; 

But only those whose inward aim 

Would do his will howe’er made clear. 

For naught can reach the Spirit’s throne 
Save what in spirit spirits own. 

A Hymn for all Religions. 
RELIGION UNTRUE TO LAWS WITHIN 
His was a vague religion! 

. . Not so vague 

As that religion is whose forms befriend 
A life to which all laws within the soul 
Are foes. The Aztec God , iv., 1. 

RELIGIOUS, ACCORDING TO THE ZEALOT 
What is more religious 

Than ministering discomfort ? Rile folks up, 

Their dregs appear; they see their own foul depths. 

Cecil the Seer , n. f 2. 

RENUNCIATION 

How many die, or all they live for lose 
Because of weapons honor cannot use! 

What hopes men bury that the ghosts which rise 
May lead the dance of others toward the skies! 

Midnight in a City Park. 

REPETITION, IN THOUGHT 

The slowest lines of thought are like the lightning’s 
In this, — they never track the same trail twice. 

Dante , III., 2. 

repression ( see expression) 

The clerk, hard pressed, who holds the coffer’s key, 
The scribe in debt who writes that none can see, 
The maid in want who fingers gem and dress, — 

We trust them all for thoughts that all repress. 

The forests flourish and the sweet flowers blow 
Because of soil that hides foul roots below; 

And all fair fruits of human life are grown 
Above dark moods and motives never shown. 


322 


A POETS CABINET 


Ah, were they shown, did man not rule himself, 

The world were whelmed in murder, vice, and pelf 
As vainly watchmen trod this dreamlike mist 
As might some weird, unwaked somnambulist. 

Midnight in a City Park . 

REPRESSION, OF LOVE 

My heart, it suffocates. This feeling here, 

It stifles me. I think that one might die, 
Forbidden speech. Ah, friend, had you a babe, 

A little puny thing that needed air, 

And nursing too; and now and then a kiss, 

A mother’s kiss, to quiet it ; and arms, 

Warm arms to wrap and rock it so to sleep; 

Would you deny it these? And yet there lives 
A far more tender babe that God calls love; 

And when He sends it, why, we mortals here, — 

I would not say we grudge the kiss, the clasp, — 

We grudge the little heavenling even air. 

The tears will come. It makes me weep to think 
Of this poor gentle babe, this heir of heaven, 

So wronged because men live ashamed of it. 

Not strange is it that earth knows little love 
While all so little dare of love to speak. 

For once (I ask no more) you must permit 
That I should nurse the stranger, give it air, 

Ay, ay, and food, if need be; let it grow. 

God’s child alone, I have no fear of it. Haydn, v. 

REPUBLIC, OUR 

But our republic here must bring to birth 
A nobler man than ever lived before; 

Or else from those who have not grown in worth 
Will tyrants rise as they have risen of yore. 

The home, the school, the church, where no crown 
trains one, 

Must teach of reverence and of truth supreme, 

Or many a will, not taught what best restrains one, 
Will break the free land’s peace and end the free- 
man’s dream. A Life in Song : Serving , lx. 

REPUTATION 

Good reputation is to good men what 
Fine perfumes are to flowers. A charm it has 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


323 


Which lures the sense that heeds it to a search 
That will not cease till finding its fair source. 

Cecil the Seer, ill., 2. 

RESPONSIBILITY, INDIVIDUAL FOR INDIVIDUAL PLANS 

The goal 

Is not of their discerning. — Why should they 
Be thought the ones to bring it to the light? 

.... But they 

.... To them it seems a madman's whim, 

A thing to flout; — to me the one conception 
Of all that is most rational and holy. 

Which, then, would give his life that it might live? 

Columbus , 11., 3. 

RESPONSIBILITY, OF CHILDREN AND FOOLS 
We never hold a child responsible for laughing out 
when tickled; nor a fool for falling when some other 
fool has tripped him. Tuition for her Intuition , ill. 

REST 

Rest, the Paradise 
Of work, is yet the Purgatory, too, 

Of indolence. Haydn , xlix. 

Rest enjoys no more than effort earns. 

The American Pioneer . 

The spirit of life 
Is a spirit of strife; 

And, whatever the thing we may gain or miss, 
The end of it all is to lie like a knight 
Whose rest is the weariness won in a fight. 

Love and Life, ill. 

REST, DAY OF, IN AMERICA 

.... If anywhere in the world people need to use 
their nights, and, at least, one day in the week, for 
rest, it's in America. 

.... I didn’t know that you were so much of a 
Puritan. 

.... Not a Puritan, a patriot. 

Where Society Leads , 1. 

RESTLESSNESS 

In life’s unending strife, 
The wrestler the most fit to win the palm 


324 


A POETS CABINET 


May be the strong soul’s restlessness, while rest, 

Like sweetmeats, all too sweet, when served ere meats, 
But surfeits appetite before it acts. Haydn , iv. 

RETRIBUTION 

Each spirit by and in itself, 

Insures what heaven should bless or brand. 

Her Haughtiness. 

REVELATION ( See INSPIRATION) 

.... Is this a revelation? 

.... Ay, to those 

Who heed the truth behind the words I use; 

And yet for those who heed this truth themselves 
I do not need to term it revelation. 

Cecil the Seer , n., 2. 

RHETORIC, RHYTHMIC 

While the wind 

Would whistle through the trees and round the rocks, 

Our shouts would join them, now, perchance, intent 

To tempt the lonely echoes to applaud 

Our strife to make our ungrown voices fit 

To bear the burden of the larger thought 

For which the world beyond our youth seemed waiting; 

And now, perchance, though seldom recognized, 

Nor if, though subtly recognized, confessed, 

Intent to gain fore-echoes, as it were, 

Of that which should be college approbation 
When words that to the air were now rehearsed 
Should load the breath that carries freight to spirit, 
And, borne along the clogs of others’ pulses, 

Should start that subtle surging in the veins 
That proves the presence and completes the work 
Of what impels to rhythmic rhetoric. 

West Mountain . 

rhymes {see poems, poet and poetry) 

None aid, or deem his aim sublime, 

For only those who try to climb 
And reach the far-off heights of rhyme, 

Can know their distance. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xx. 

A poet is a babe, whose plea 
Is whined in words. Alas for me, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


325 


Can screaming scare away one’s pain? 

The rattlings of a restless brain, 

What good did ever rhymes obtain? Idem. 

ridicule {see laughter) 

.... Far better have men point at us and laugh, 
Than never have them point to us at all. 

.... Do you say this, who were so sensitive, 
High-spirited? 

.... One may have so much sense 

It holds the spirit down. Besides, our spheres 
Are stagnant and need movement. Make men take 
You gravely if you can; if not, what though 
They laugh? You move them that way. There are 
times 

The tiniest tinkling that can tap the air 
Rings up life’s curtain for its grandest act. 

Columbus , 11., 1. 

RIGHT AND WRONG 

Strange mixture life is of the right and wrong ! 
Should one be good, or kind? and which is which? 
How much that seems in line for both is but 
A ray that falls to form a pathway here 
From the rent forms of clouds beyond our reach 
Which, while they let the light in, bring the storm ! 

Idem. 

RIGHT APPEARING DIFFERENT TO DIFFERENT PERSONS 

When we deal with others whose judgment we must 
influence, what is right depends much less on what 
seems right to us, than what seems right to them. 

Tuition for her Intuition , III. 

RIGHT, AS DETERMINED BY STATE AND SELF 

.... But you and I — we know the state is wrong ; 
and we are helping it to find the right. 

.... The right to it is what the laws decree, until 
the state that makes them makes them void. 

The Two Paths , ill. 

RIGHT-MINDED VS. WRONG-MINDED AS FRIENDS 

If you start out to repel even a few right-minded 
people, you may end by attracting a good many who 
are wrong-minded. Where Society Leads , 1. 


326 


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RIGHT OR WRONG DEPENDENT ON CIRCUMSTANCES 

The right is right, and wrong is wrong. 

It is; and when a strife is threatened, that which 
tends to peace is usually right, and that which tends 
to strife is wrong. Tuition for her Intuition , II. 

RIGHT, PERSONAL AND LEGAL 

.... Why, it is right to get your paper. 

.... In one sense yes; but in another, no. Right 
toward ourselves, but not right toward the state, 
whose laws, like its policemen, guard both good and 
bad, and thus give all security. 

The Two Paths , hi. 

RIGHTEOUS, THE, FORCING RECOGNITION FROM FOES 

Your men that rule 

When others hold the place that they would fill, 

Tramp an inferior, and push off an equal ; 

But if some scheme they basely brew be spoiled 

By one above them, — they are left no option; 

But, like a cover, they must lift him higher. 

;So, by their very righteousness, you see 

The righteous force their foes to do them justice. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

RISING IN LIFE THROUGH FALLING 

. . . Why see, my shoe has been unbuttoned. 

.... Yes; you take me for a shoe shop’s clerk? 

.... I take you for one who wants to rise in life. 
You know there’s nothing like beginning at the foot. 

.... But some that do it, stay there. I have 
heard that women like to keep men at their feet. 

.... And I have heard that some men like to be 
there. The two things go together — men and women. 

.... Yes, sometimes! Sometimes, though, they 
keep apart. The Two Paths , I. 

RISK 

No one ever ran a race worth while but ran it at a 
risk. On Detective Duty , ill. 

rites {see form and spirit, and regalia) 

A publican may use 

Vain rites that oft the truth of heaven abuse, 

Yet breathe through each dead body of a prayer 

Sighs that infuse a living spirit there; 


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And he whose faith in freest ways may roam 
Have constant yearnings for some churchly home. 
Ah, they who trust in God’s most sovereign might 
Find much to do, if they would do the right; 

And they who trust the power of human will, 

Oft fail, and feel their need of mercy still. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , lii. 

RITUALISM {see FORM AND SPIRIT, REGALIA and 

rites) 

With incantations exorcising sin, 

The white-robed choir and priests have marched and 
bowed; 

And pleas, politely phrased to please the crowd, 

Have flattered those whose coin the coffers win. 

And thus, forsooth, with lip and eye and ear 
Men seek to honor him whose one chief call 
Was “Follow me. ” Were they to meet him here, 
Could those whose faith these outward forms enthrall 
Trust to the spirit in him, or revere 
The kind of living for which he gave all? 

The Faith That Doubts. 

RIVAL, A, IN COURTSHIP 

He flutter’d like her fan at Edith’s beck, 

Her silence fill’d with subtlest flattery, 

Her vacant hours invaded with himself ; 

Till all my life, at last, appear’d a plot 
To steal upon his absence, and then pluck 
Love’s fruit. Ideals Made Real , xxxii. 

He on us burst, and brought a sudden light 
Illuminating her, and paling me, 

Blanch’d, ash-like, in the flame of that hot flush 
That warm’d her welcome. All my heart and breath 
Seem’d sunk in silence like the buzzing bees 
When autumn steals the sunlight from the flowers, 
And frost seals down their sweets. I heard them 
talk 

Like one who just has walk’d a glacier path 
With boist’rous friends; then, stumbling, slips away, 
Far suck’d through freezing fathoms down to death, 
Yet hears the cruel laughter crackling still. 

Idem , xxvi. 


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ROMANCE 

Romance is a dream 
That the wise esteem, 

For none whom it never possest 
Were ever the bravest or best. 

The helpers that bend to all need 
Are sensitive first to heed 
The calls that are nearest. 

The loving all learn the art 
Of opening mind and heart 
With those that are dearest. 

And, oh, wherever two souls agree 
With every mood transparent within, 

How pure they grow to the eyes that see, 

How empty themselves of sin! 

Love and Life , xxn. 

Romance is but the day-time of the soul 
Well sunned by love, beneath which, when we dwell, 
Each act of duty and each thought of truth 
Is haloed with a light that seems like heaven’s. 

To spirits rightly moved, the whole of life, 

Home, school, religion — all lead through romance. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

ROSY 

If I to you were cold, 

A certain rosy face with opening lips 

Could come with power to bring me summer air, 

Dispelling sweetly my most wintry wish, 

Haydn , xxiv. 

ROUGE ON THE FACE ( See PAINT) 

.... I fail to understand why a woman should be 
blamed for making herself look beautiful. 

.... Say beautiful and good. Only good people 
blush, you know. A little rouge can make one seem to 
be blushing all the time. 

.... And so prepare her for all the emergencies of 
good society! Where Society Leads , i 

ROUGH, IN CONDUCT 

You musn’t think I have no heart. I’ve been a little 
rough with you. But you were rough with me, at first. 
You know we can’t trust strangers always; and have 


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to give back what we get. This life’s an ocean wild 
with waves; and every soul that sails upon them must 
beat and keep them down and off ; or else be swamped 
and sink in them. The Little Twin Tramps , in., 2. 

ROWING THROUGH A HOSTILE FLEET 

“ The roads are block’d by soldiers; 

We cannot reach him thus. 

What then? — A way across the bay 
May yet remain for us. 

44 I know three frigates guard it. 

But when, some moonless night, 

By clouds beset, the wind and wet 
Have swept the sky of light; 

44 And when the breeze and breakers 
Out-sound a rowlock’s beat, 

Amid the roar a muffled oar 
Might safely pass the fleet.” 

His comrades hush’d and heard him; 

Then swore to try the feat ; 

And soon with more each held an oar 
To row him past the fleet. 

The night was dark and stormy; 

The bay was wild and wide; 

And, deftly weigh’d, each paddle-blade 
Like velvet stroked the tide. 

They near’d the English frigates, 

They heard their sentries’ feet, 

They heard a bell, and then 44 All’s well” 
Re-echo’d through the fleet. 

They pull’d around a guard-boat; 

They struck the land, and then 
Filed softly out, and moved about, 

Like shadows more than men. 

How Barton Took the General . 

ROYAL RULE 

The nobles, while their winnings 
Like nuggets clog the sieve 
That ours drop through, would not eschew 
Their royal rule: 4 4 To others do 
What makes them humbly live.” 

Our First Break with the British. 


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RULES, WITHOUT AND WITHIN 

Oh, something surely must be wrong 
When that which rules without rules not within. 

The Aztec God , iv., I. 

RULING 

That cruel mill 

Where the wheels that run the ruling grind to dust 
the people’s will. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xxi. 

RULING FOR WOMEN BY MEN 

They merely yield to laws of nature that give wives 
their way, not through demanding but desiring, while, 
like willing slaves, men wait on their desiring. You 
know I think that only when some woman becomes to 
him a source of love can man, on his part, represent 
true love’s effects. When I was young, men had more 
courtesy than now. None helped themselves to any- 
thing before they helped the women ; talked when they 
were talking, or sat down when they were standing ; or 
failed to be their champion, if their lives or honor 
needed. All too had been caused by men’s, not 
women’s, ruling. Is it so to-day? I fear not. 

Tuition for her Intuition , I. 

RUTS FOR ACTION 

On earth, our souls are fastened where we find them. 
Our bodies, families, lands and laws are frames in 
which we squeeze or slip to failure or success. What 
then? One thing, at least, is true. If heaven have 
shaped the ruts we move in here, they move the best 
who move through them. 

The Little Twin Tramps , hi., 2. 

SACRIFICE 

.... I spoke of sacrifice 

.... And I have sacrificed low love for higher. 
.... You call that sacrifice? 

.... What? Is it not? — 

To give up what is earthly for the heavenly? — 
Turn from the serpent coiled within the loins 
To follow in the flight of that fair dove 
Whose wings are fluttering within the heart? 

The Aztec God, iv., 1. 


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SACRIFICE, THE LAW OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT 
Were I to tell you that the realm 
In which the gods dwell could be reached by you 
In one way only, — in the self-same way 
That severs in the temple soul from form 
In him your priests and people choose as god? — 
.... Then I would thank the force that severed me 
From all that could weigh down a soul so light 
That but for them it might soar up to heaven. 

Idem , v. 

SAILING 

“All hands aloft!” he cried; 

“All sail!” and at the words, 

The masts were fill’d with sailors drill’d 
To climb and cling like birds. 

Wide flew each flapping sheet, 

And sagg’d and bagg’d the gale, 

And cloud-like lash’d the waves that dash’d 
As if they felt a flail. 

Up toss’d her canvas high; 

And dipp’d, as round she ran, 

The saucy way that seems to say 
Now catch me if you can. 

The Last Cruise of the Gaspee. 
SAINT 

Our home is like a sick bird’s nest, 

Whose fellows’ beaks all pierce its breast. 
Strange cure! — yet ’t is an old complaint, 

That much of love, when only faint, 

Is peckt to death to make a saint. 

4 Life in Song: Doubting , xxvil. 

SAINTS 

You act like saints we read of in the legends, 

With holy air about them. As you enter, 

Our thoughts turn toward religion. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 

SANGUINE TEMPERAMENT, THE 
Some men are born with light, aspiring blood 
That, bounding brainward, keeps the whole frame 
glowing. The Aztec God , 11. 


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SATISFIED {see discontent) 

Where so much good is still untried, 

Our souls must all, if satisfied 
With what they have or are, abide 
Untaught, unhonor’d, and unblest; 

For but to-day what is is best. 

The morrow’s gain is all possess’d 
By those who journey ere they rest. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xvm. 

If earth held all our souls could wish, no soul 
Could ever wish for heaven. 

The Aztec God, n. 

SAXON 

Thus Heaven, where hung the purpose 
A grander man to mould, 

Had Saxon hurl’d on Saxon, 

The new world on the old. 

The Rally of the Farmers . 

SCALES, BETWEEN OUTWARD AND INWARD 

Why are the scales 
That measure what our world is worth so poised 
Betwixt the outward and the inward life 
That what lifts up the one must lower the other? 
Why, when we reach the highest earthly place 
Must this be balanced by the spirit’s fall? 

The Aztec God , hi. 

SCENT AND SENSE 

No scent is keen for what it can not sense. You 
think a hard and loveless thing like her could sense my 
simple self here in a r61e that did not seem — say — 
unsophisticated? The Two Paths , u. 

scolding that is chirping 
No; do not rough your feathers. When a bird like 
you flies in the door, it need not sing to give one pleas- 
ure. It need only scold ; for when it scolds, it chirps. 

The Two Paths, hi. 

SCOLDING VS. LOVE 

When a woman blows out at a man she runs about 
as much chance of not uprooting his love as a cyclone 
of not uprooting a twig it begins to twist. 

The Ranch Girl , iv. 


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SCHOOLS, FREE, AND THEIR EFFECTS 

.... At school, sir, he has mixed with others. 
.... Yes, yes, and, in a way not true in our old 
land across the sea, been given a chance to go with 
those brought up in our most cultured homes, and 
come to feel and act as they do. Our schools are 
schools where every boy can learn to be a gentleman. 
That’s why I love this country, yes, despite the snob 
I’ve seemed to be who couldn’t root out the old world’s 
weeds. The Little Twin Tramps , v. 

SCOTLAND 

But who, that sought historic mounts and lakes, 

Traced not fair Scotia’s image o’er the wave, 
Toward mounds and meads, where scarce a sunbeam 
breaks 

But bounds the ground to star a patriot’s grave? 
Proud land, whose knees have knelt to tyrants never, 
Whose clans of old have kept their children free, 
Where thrives an earnest thought, a high endeavor, 
That would not take delight, when face to face with 
thee? 

Where dwell the pure who would not praise thy name? 

Thy wrong at home precedence gives to worth, 

And though in thy chill clime cold greets the flame, 
Thy light, wherever borne, enlightens earth. 

For this would truth forget false virtue’s features. — 
Awed still by thoughts of hallow’d Sabbath noons, 
Ye beggars never doff the cant of preachers ! 

Nor squeeze through squeaking bagpipes, irreligious 
tunes ! 

But who could here note all a stranger’s thought 

That springs to crowd each path where’er he turns, 
While every scene with new suggestions fraught 
Recalls a Scott or Wallace, Bruce or Burns? 

He delved through Bannockburn; he mounted Stirling, 
Where half-way up to heaven appear’d his view; 
Then, coach-swept, through the cliff-walled Trossachs 
whirling 

Came first upon Fitz- James, and then on Roderic Dhu. 

Nor did a force that seem’d enchantment fail 
To draw him where the rills of Yarrow gleam; 


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Nor did an echo through its drowsy vale 

Disturb that haunt of many a wizard-dream. 

And not a tree beside its bank was leaning, 

Nor by it there reclined a sheltering rock, 

But veil’d for him a poet’s mien and meaning, 

From Newark’s birchen bowers to bare St. Mary’s 
Loch. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xxxiv-xxxvii. 

SEA 

Yet wrong I thee, thou wide and wave-swept sea, 
And tireless wheels that whur so ceaselessly. 

I wrong the skies that, bending down to thee, 

Yet fail to compass thine immensity. 

I wrong that mighty breast, whose endless grieving 
Inspires the wild response of sailors* lays, 

That bosom where omnipotence is breathing, 

And wakes in distant isles the heathen’s awe-struck 
praise. 

Tremendous monarch of all elements 

Whose broad arms clasp the heavens, their only 
peer, 

What age of wrong, what wail of turbulence 
First hail’d thee tyrant of our trembling sphere? 

Who bade those winds arise and rouse thy laughter? 
Those lightnings flash to fret thy fitful reign? 

That menace fierce to peal in thunder after? 

Those waves to howl and hiss at life o’erwhelm’d 
and slain? 

Say power of dread, is it thy rage or joy 
That hurls confusion o’er the vessel’s way, 

The while ’t is toss’d as lightly as a toy, 

Or cliff -like driven to sink beneath the spray? 

Ah, when ’t is dash’d along the dark fog under, 

No eye can pierce the veil of instant doom, 

Till hidden rock or ice with madden’d wonder 

Roars at the rising foam, — man’s ghost-track and his 
tomb. 

No human skill saves here; men work, men weep. 
Why shouldst thou care, thou omnipresent sea? 

The blasts that rave and clouds that round thee sweep 
Owe substance, breath, existence, — all to thee. 


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They gain their grandeur, when thy waves are hoary; 
And when, worn out, their wayward might would 
rest, 

No rest they gain, till thou with pardoning glory 
Dost gather all again on thy resentless breast. 

Nor when fair skies or shores most beauty show, 

Can they outrival thee, O, Lord-like deep ! 

Within, and yet not of, they life below, 

On thy calm breast, they all in image sleep ! 

Ay, ay, the peace that follows thy restraining 
Of storms that rage to vent thy wrath sublime, 
Crowns thee victorious, every power containing, 

Thou God in miniature, eternity in time. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xxv-xxix. 
secretiveness {see frank and frankness) 

We men who think have duties due our kind. 

One duty is, to block their finding out 

What are our thoughts. Yes, they may learn too much. 

Columbus , III., 2. 

The truth is not a plaything for a babe. 

Truth is a gem, and sometimes needs encasing. 

Idem. 

I had a dream — 

. . . . And you are blamed for dreaming? 

.... No; I told it. 

. . . . Another Joseph! — indiscreet, I see. 

You should have known we all at heart are Tartars; 
And value most the beauty of the spirit, 

When, like the Tartar’s daughter, it is veiled. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

sects {see church unity, and unity) 

Long will sects of darker ages, darker made by man’s 
control, 

Clog the growth of aim and action, save the form and 
lose the soul. A Life in Song: Watching , xxi. 

SEDUCTION 

.... Next to murder there is no sport like it. 
.... To murder? 

.... Oh, you never were a soldier? — killed In- 
dians; or southerner? — killed niggers; or hunted big 
game in the West? — killed bears? You know the 


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consciousness of mastering a something big enough to 
master you, and all the risk you run — it makes you 
thrill; and feel you are an animal all over. 

On Detective Duty , n. 

SEE, THE INFLUENCE OF WHAT WE 

Our deeds express the thought suggested by the 
things we see. The Two Paths, ill. 

SEEMING AND BEING 
.... There are some things clear. 

.... And some things only seem clear, like the 
water inside a glass, because our own dull sight fails 
to detect the microbes peopling it. 

The Two Paths , I. 

SEGREGATION OF VICE RESORTS 
.... So you would shut us up? 

.... That doesn’t follow. A cess-pool is a nui- 
sance, but has uses. It catches in a single place, and 
holds what might be dangerous, if distributed. Be- 
sides, your poor policeman needs a pond where he can 
catch what he is fishing for. On Detective Duty , H. 

SELF 

0 could some Godlike soul look through 
My outward life, like God, and view 
And judge my soul, with judgment true, 

By what I am, not what I do; 

By what I am, not where I stand, 

Which souls of low, short sight demand 
Before they dare give bow or hand! 

A Life in Song: Doubting , vii. 

SELFHOOD AS THE OBJECT OF LOVE 
I want you; and you are what you are, and think and 
plan. You are my sun, my source of light and life, 
and I your satellite, attending you ; you bless me most 
when you are most yourself. The Two Paths , I. 

SELF-CENTERED 

In her the smile that brings life cheer, 

The tone that faith can understand, 

The phrase that makes the doubtful clear, 

The clasp that plights the helping hand, 

The sympathies that zest infuse, 

The comradeships that souls ally, 


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Her heart has never thrilled to use, 

Her head has never planned to try. 

Her Haughtiness. 

self-conceit ( see egotist and themselves) 

. . . . ^ He is a very interesting man. 

. . . . You think so? 

. . . . To himself. When all one’s eyes 

And ears are turned like his on his own person, 

He bears about both audience and actor. 

Dante , I., I. 

SELF-CONFIDENCE 
Had I but more self-confidence, 

The men who give me such offence 
Might yield my thought more reverence. 

When foes attempt to cow their zeal, 

Those who would do good work should feel 
That none can rightly make right kneel. 

Some men have manners dignified 
By nature; others learn to stride; 

But others still, with no less pride, 

Can never show what will not screen 
And keep their inner worth unseen. 

The brute that shakes at these his mane, 

Lets fly his hoof, nor minds their pain, 

If only whipp’d from his disdain 
And broken once, might mind the rein. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , vi. 
self-conquest ( see alone and lonely) 

Within himself when fierce the fight is waged, 

Oh, who can aid the purpose thus engaged! 

The soul, unheard, in darkness and alone, 

Can never share a contest all its own. 

None from another’s practice gains in skill, 

Or grows in power of feeling, thought, or will; 

None with another goes to God in dreams 
To seek the strength that his lost strength redeems. 
What coward he, then, when the crisis nears 
Who cries for comrades, nor dare face his fears! 

No comrade’s arm or mail can ever screen 
The coming conqueror in that strife unseen. 

Midnight in a City Park . 


22 


338 


A POET'S CABINET 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

A man may double up his fist and frown, 

And make fiend-faces merely at himself. 

.... Why so? 

.... Because that self asserts itself; 

And he keeps fighting it to keep it down. 

.... That self must then be very strong. 

.... It is — 

In Dante. Dante , I., I. 

self-control ( see impetuous and prohibition) 
Strong self-control 
Has never yet forsaken man or clan 
Where did not enter the control of others. 

Dante , III., 2. 

Hold friend — the good for which men yearn 
Makes ill to them provoking; 

And only zeal on fire to burn 
First fills its air with smoking. 

If this be so, some day, your soul 
A worth world-wide may sunder 
From those who have — their self-control, 

But nothing to keep under. 

Nothing to Keep Under. 
Ah, self-control, 

The rest rheumatic of a zest grown old, 

It came with time; but mine had come from care. 
Cold self-control, the curse of northern climes, 

The artful despot of the Arctic heart, — 

Before my summer scarce had warm’d me yet, 

Was it to freeze me with its wintry clutch 
Of colorless indifference? chill and check 
The springs of love till still’d in ice-like death? 

Ideals Made Real , lix. 

SELF-CONTROL AND PERMANENCE IN PLEASURE 
Men know more pleasures than the brutes, not so? — 
but why? — The difference lies in self-control. Excite- 
ment makes men yield this. Say they drink : — a single 
glass may set their thoughts to glowing; but one glass 
more — two glasses — they may lose both senses and 
sensation — wake with headaches, and sometimes heart- 
aches ; and some last forever. The Two Paths , iv. 


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SELF-CONTROL VS. RIGHT FEELING 

.... Like plants, our natures never can grow 
strong, if always kept inside of nurseries. 

.... Some women want to keep us all there, 
always. 

.... What they were made to live in — nur- 
series! 

.... Yes, what a man conceives that he must 
fight, most women seem to think that they must fly 
from. While he seeks virtue in his self-control, they 
look for theirs in absence of its need. Their aim is not 
like his, — to do the right despite wrong feeling, but to 
feel aright. 

.... And in their habits formed by following 
feeling you find the reason why a fallen woman is 
harder to reform than fallen man. 

Tuition for her Intuition , II. 

SELF-DECEPTION 

.... But surely there are some occasions when the 
laws within are all we need for guidance. 

.... And yet if these occasions come to thoughts 
that once have slipped the track of truthful logic, as 
now I fear that ours have done, what then? — We risk 
a wreck. The Two Paths f III. 

An eye, made dim, may facts gainsay 
And see, in fairest forms at bay, 

But lions fierce that fill the way. 

When dull to sounds, a man may fear 
And take the rumbling he may hear 
Within his own disorder’d ear 
For footsteps of advancing strife. 

Whate’er we seek or shun in life, 

Too often we ourselves conjure 
The direst foes its veils obscure. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxv. 

SELFISHNESS, AS A GUIDE TO ACTION 

Mere selfishness 

Has been enthroned so long in men’s affairs, 

That naught seems worthy of respect to some 
Of which it only is not king and guide. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 


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SELF-INTEREST 

Some minds would walk and some would fly. Y ou fear 
That those that fly all fail to leave a footprint? 

Dante , I., 2. 

SELF-KNOWLEDGE 

When you have read yourself, you may be heard 
When trying to read others. Cecil the Seer, 1. 
SELF-MADE MEN 

Yes, all made men are self-made men: 

We ask too much of friendship then: 

The soul’s best impulse, in the end, 

Is evermore the soul’s best friend. 

And when truth’s whispers all pertain 
To our souls only, why complain, 

Tho’ none but us their import gain? 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xvn. 
SELF-RELIANCE 

Well for those who kneel in youth. 
Self-reliance tends to failure, even where it starts with 
truth. Idem , Dreaming , xxxvm. 

SELF-RESPECT, A MAN’S LOSING IT WITH A WOMAN 

The worst disrespect that a man can show a woman 
is to lose, in her presence, his own self-respect. Her 
influence upon his nature is never what she ought to 
aim for, unless she is appealing to him as an ideal ; and 
an ideal is never appealing to a man, except as it is 
suggesting to him ideas that are his best. 

Where Society Leads , 1. 
SELF-RULE 

Oh, would some power 
Could tell us how to balance, in our lives, 

The rule of others and the rule of self! 

How can we, when the two conflict, serve both? 

And which one should we [serve? — which first? — For 
me, 

Till spirit seem no more than matter is, 

I hold it that which rules me through the spirit. 

The Aztec God , v. 

SELF-SACRIFICE 
Full oft, all ease denying, 

One’s only gain is conscious right, 


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One’s rest comes but from dying. 

But once a prince here died to give 
His own good spirit to us; 

And good for which we, too, would live 
May work less in than through us. 

At the Parting of the Ways. 
The bugle calls the hill to storm. 

My body thrills ! — I use it 
As due a spirit’s uniform 

Used best by those who lose it. Idem. 
SELF-SEEKING 

Everything that has to do with mind or soul is wrong 
that involves any impoverishing of others in order to 
enrich oneself, or any waiving of ideal advantage for 
all, in order to make real what is termed practical 
success for a few. Fundamentals in Education. 

SELF-SURRENDER 

Ah, loved one, not the dullest nerve 
In all this form I own 
But would be thrill’d with bliss to serve 
And toil for thee alone. 

So, darling, put thy hand in mine, 

And let me hear thee call me thine. 

What canst thou do to seem more dear? — 

Seem more to own me, soul and form; 

Nor think they e’er can be too near 
Thy heart that love keeps warm. 

O darling, make my whole life be 
One long sweet dream of pleasing thee. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xlv 

SELF THE SOURCE OF MENTAL CHANGE 
Where did you find these notions? 

.... In the place from which all better notions 
well, I think, if we would only heed them, — in myself. 

The Two Paths , iv. 

SELF VS. SOCIAL FOLLY 

Forgive you? — You were merely, for the time 
being, like almost everybody else, — the mouth-piece 
of the social folly of the world about you. Now you 
are yourself ; and in this there is nothing to forgive. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl , iv. 


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SENSATIONAL 

.... Does that 

Make preachers, eh, sensational? You should know. 
. . . . You think sensations are acquired? 

. . . . I know 

A soul that squeals well, is a soul well squeezed. 
Sensation is the step-son of depression. 

Columbus , ii., 2. 

sense and soul {see soul) 

Ours are souls that oft 
We strip for heaven by flinging sense to hell. 

Sense and Soul. 

Unselfish, all ethereal in her thought, 

A disembodied soul had held less moods 

Touch’d through the senses. One had sooner snared 

With tatter’d nets of tow a wind of spring, 

Or with his own breath warm’d the wintry air. 

Ideals Made Real , xxii. 
SENSE AND SPIRIT 

We mortals are compounded 
Of sense below, and spirit resting on it. 

If sense give way, no wonder spirit falls. 

Dante , n., I. 
SENSES WITHOUT SENSE 

To see is not to think. The animals all see. It 
seems a paradox, and yet one may have senses, and 
but little sense. Tuition for her Intuition , ii. 

sensitive {see courting and susceptibility) 
Those modest plants that men term sensitive, 

If unmolested, show no morbid traits. 

It is the alien touch which strangers give 

That shrinks their leaves to sharp and hostile 
states. 

Thus find we often shrinking spirits wearing 
Unfriendly mail, where aught their trust repels; 

But, when the doubt has pass’d, which caused this 
bearing, 

Of what a genial life their loving welcome tells ! 

A Life in Song: Serving , x. 
What drug to hearing poured he in her ear 


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To deaden nerves hereto so sensitive 
To slightest whispers of my thrilling love 
That hands, voice, lips, and eyelids, all her frame 
Went trembling like a willow in a wind? 

The Aztec God , in. 

When men’s misjudgments thus have made a man 
Withdraw from them, nor longer care to live, 

He oft is forced, as if by nature’s plan, 

To seek new friends, who, too, are sensitive. 

In these, perchance, the soul may find its brothers; 

With these, perchance, can life again seem sweet, 
For these, in seeking charity from others, 

Have gain’d it, too, to give to those with whom they 
meet. A Life in Song: Serving , xi. 

My nerves are sensitive to form and hue, 

A little flitting of the two but serves 
To irritate and make me itch for more. 

But let me once be free to bound and whirl 
And scratch my gaze upon them in the dance, 
What cures me will not scar below the surface. 
Yes; I have better avenues through which 
These outer visions reach the heart. 

The Aztec God, n. 

Oh, who is he that shall win life’s prize? — 

He may be the least in his comrades’ eyes. 

For the compass that saves when mysteries throng 

Would better be sensitive first than strong. 

The triumph of sinew and speed are brief; 

For the harbor sought is dim and far, 

Past many a bar, 

And many a well hid reef. Love and Life , xi. 

You and I, reader, do not understand a sensitive 
man if we always attribute his actions to motives 
that lie within the sphere, or are under the con- 
trol, of intellect. I have seen a child stand mute 
before a teacher who was threatening him, and make 
no effort, apparently, to recite a lesson that he knew 
perfectly. It was simply a physical impossibility for 
the child to utter a syllable. 

Modern Fishers of Men, ill. 


344 


A POETS CABINET 


SENTIMENTAL WHIMS DANGEROUS 

It would not be the first time men have paid in blood 
the price of an experiment in courtesy. No microbes 
undermine the mind like sentimental whims that, 
when they move inside our fancy, make us think them 
the promptings of some deep, wise inspiration. 

Tuition for her Intuition , hi. 

SENTIMENTALITY 

Sentiment and sentimentality seem to represent the 
comparative and superlative degrees in which thought 
in this world is removed from sense. 

Art and Morals. 

SERPENTS, PLAYING WITH 

No man is such a fool as he who thinks to keep his 
own soul free to do the right, yet keep in touch with 
those embodying the serpent traits of him we call the 
devil. Why, all they live for is to crawl and coil ; and 
all their coils are wound about ourselves. 

The Two Paths , n 

SERVICE, AN ANTIDOTE FOR TROUBLE 
.... When the child of our brain gives us trouble, 
we must send him out into service. 

.... You mean if people be lazy they forget them- 
selves the most, when they seem surrounded by work. 

The Ranch Girl , 11. 

service of love {see love) 

The world plays tyrant to the soul would serve it. 
It treats him like a female relative 
Whose drudgery is deemed supremely paid 
By her own love. But when the wage one wants 
Is not within one, love is never paid. 

Columbus , ii., i. 

Alas, where hate 

Is a normal state, 

Who serves the world with a love that is great 
Is rated a foe by those who refuse it, 

Nor always a friend by those who use it; 

For he, forsooth, he knew of their need 
In the day they knew not how to succeed! 

Unveiling the Monument. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


345 


SERVITUDE 

When one’s inward sense 
Of mastership outweighs an outward show 
Of servitude, why, one but serves herself. 

Columbus , ii., i. 

SEWING AND ROMANCING 

It would seem as if the wheels of the sewing ma- 
chine were always attached to the machinery of the 
imagination. The Snob and the Sewing Girl , I. 

sex {see woman) 

.... I sometimes think, if I had made mankind, 
I should have made them all of but one sex. All might 
be women, up to forty, say ; then — by a sort of tadpole- 
change — all men. 

.... That would have rid life of two nuisances, — 
the small boy, and great women. 

.... And we all, before we got through living, 
would have had the same experience. 

.... Oh, yes, I see; have sung soprano first — and 
sung it well — and then sung bass. 

Tuition for her Intuition , i. 
sex-discrimination needed 

When listening to a foreign opera, and both the 
stars upon the stage begin to flush, and fisticate, and 
make a noise, no matter what they say, you fail to hear 
it; you wouldn’t understand it, if you could. All that 
you care to know of it is this: It is a part — a strong 
part — of the play. The sort of thing that I have just 
been hearing appears to me the very strongest part of 
that experiment in harmony — in human — yes, in- 
human, harmony — on which you all seem practicing 
out here. You see the feature of the plot is this: The 
men and women love each other so, they both think 
both of them are just alike. But nature never made 
them thus. The one is fatter here, the other leaner 
there: but when they mingle, holding all in common, of 
course they put on one another’s clothes. The clothes 
most always bag or pinch, and then they start to 
howl and swear at one another because all seem so 
meanly selfish when they all want clothes that merely 
fit themselves. Tuition for her Intuition, ii. 


346 


A POETS CABINET 


SHADE 

Nothing bright can come, 

But brings beside it something in the shade. 

Columbus , iv. f i. 

SHADE VS. HEAVENLY LIGHT 
There were no shade beside a thing on earth, 

If heaven’s one sun were central over all. 

Dante y II., I. 
SHADOW, A WALKING 

The sort of man that always plays the walking 
shadow to some woman; and all he seems to do is 
done by her! Tuition for her Intuition t hi. 

SHADOWS 

.... High noon will come for him when he can see 
A form like that one shadowing him no more. 

.... I think it always may seem noon to those 
Who trample all their shadows underfoot 
As he does. Cecil the Seer , I. 

My shadow might shed blackness on yourself. 

. . . . The blackest shadows fall from brightest forms. 

Dante , ill., 2. 

SHAME FOR MISRULE 
They did not dare to kindle 
A spark that, should it flame, 

Would shed no glory round a throne 
Where prince and peer would flush alone 
To blush for their own shame. 

Our First Break with the British . 
SHARING LOVE WITH ANOTHER’S LOVER 
And then I learn’ d — as many a friend has learn’d — 
Who with them strove my joy for them to share, 
How much more joy was theirs, when theirs alone. 

Ideals Made Real , lxii. 

SHARING PROFITS {see WAGE) 

.... I am one of those who look for times when 
all will take more joy in sharing profits than in storing 
them. 

.... A long way off! 

.... I hope not. It would be so pleasant — so 
much more pleasant in the world — to see around one 
everywhere employees, all well housed, well clothed, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


347 


well fed, well educated! When men learn how 
pleasant that would seem, the labor-problem will be 
solved. 

.... Yes, when 

.... Oh, men will learn it yet! — but not until 
both your employers and you yourselves have learned 
to think — and so to trust in brain instead of brawn. 
I tell you mind not muscle is that which has the 
strength to make this old world better; and by mind 
I mean the whole mind, — thought and love and all 
that lifts above the brute, and gives one soul and 
fellow-feeling. The Little Twin Tramps , hi., 2. 

SHEEP COMING HOME 

.... I like to watch the sheep coming home — a 
beautiful sight ! At first you notice they look like a 
low, stone fence on the top of the distant hill; and then 
flock on till the whole of the hill is gray as a ledge of 
marble; but when nearer they look like a wedge. 
Last night I rode out on a donkey; and, when I had 
met them and turned, they all ran sweeping behind 
me, like the white and spreading train of a long 
trailed wedding dress. 

.... It is not the first time, my lady, that a 
donkey’s bridle has led a wedding train on toward a 
halter . The Ranch Girl , hi. 

SHIPS 

There are ships 

That still need captains 

.... Could one see their sails 

Like arms, white-surpliced, praying heaven for wind, 
Yet keep his prow still turned away from that 
Which he had vowed to heaven that he would seek? 

Columbus , 1., 2. 

SHIRK 

To work off whims, 

The best way, say they, is to work them out ; 

One hand at work is worth ten heads that shirk. 

Ideals Made Real , xlix. 

SHOCKS FROM TRUTH 

I and all my truth 
Seem like champagne,— a thing that pops and shocks, 


348 A POET'S CABINET 

But yet enlivens when the hour is dull. Idem , lvi. 

SHOULD BE 

Ah, when what should be is, 
What is will be beyond this earth. 

Columbus , II., I. 
SHOULDERS SHRUGGED 

While her shoulders gently shrugg’d 
As if to tempt me like two dainty doors, 

Doors all but swung ajar before a heart 
That love was dared to enter! 

Ideals Made Real , x. 

SHRIEKS 

Whose piercing shrieks cut through 
The fitful surgings of the storm, and maim’d 
The sever’d thunder. 

A Life in Song: Daring , lxxvii. 
sides, TWO 

What you moot 

May show two sides. A man may be run down 
Amid the clash and clangor of a street, 

Because one ear is deaf. In any path, 

The rush of life may run down all who hear 
But on one side. Cecil the Seer , I. 

SIGH 

If you sigh’d 

Your sigh out once, it to the winds would glide. 
Naught like an airing would you oust a moan! 

A Life in Song: Daring , xlv. 

SIGNALS 

Yet hope not for gleams of wisdom lighting all life 
holds in store. 

Finite souls must journey onward, learning ever more 
and more. 

Only signals can be given; look to these; and, by and 
t>y, 

Through the pure white air beyond you grander views 
will greet the eye. Idem , Dreaming , xxxvm. 

SILENCE 

The silence of the good 
Damns more than bad men’s curses. 

Columbus, ii., i. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


349 


None thought on shore to cheer us, 

Though all had waited there; 

Their silence match’d the silence. 

Where souls have flown to prayer. 

Their silence match’d the silence 
Of war’s reserves, whose breath 
Is hush’d to hear the order, 

That orders all to death. 

Their silence match’d the silence 
Of heavens, close and warm, 

Ere, like a shell incasing hell, 

They burst and free a storm. 

As hush’d as on a Sabbath, 

The people homeward went ; 

Their eyes alone transparent, 

To show their souls’ content. 

The Lebanon Boys in Boston. 

SIMPLEST 

When men learn all, and skies that dome earth here 
Roll back to let the light of heaven stream through, 
Grand truths may in the simplest things appear, 

In outlines which before all mortals knew. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxxi. 
sin {see crimes) 

But even with sin 
May rescue begin, 

And out of a fall 
Come the safety of all, — 

Come the knowledge of good as well as of bad; 

With the knowledge of ill from the shade of the sad, 
The knowledge of faith which alone can unite 
A soul to the Infinite source of light. 

Love and Life , lvi. 

In natures framed 

Of spirit, mind, and flesh, the cause may be 
Some sin that clogs the current of the soul; 

But, just as likely, thought that puzzles one; 

Yes, yes, or indigestion, nerves diseased — 

No trace of sin whatever; — moods cured best 
By sunshine, clean clothes, larders full, good cheer. 

Haydn , xxxix. 


350 


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SINGING 

Let echoes answer, ringing 
To that which lulls the babe at birth, 

And voices all the good of earth, 

Gives God His glory, heaven its worth — 
Eternal sway to singing ! 

A Song on Singing. 

SIREN 

And what if over a net so fair 
The brightest eyes be beaming? 

O who can know if there 

A friendly light be gleaming; 

Or one like a torch on a hostile shore 
That wreckers are waving where breakers roar? 
Who knows if the tone that allures his choice 
Be a seraph’s or only a siren’s voice, 

Which, were he to heed it, his hope would be 
Far safer lured to the stormiest sea? 

A Life in Song: Loving , xvm. 

SITUATION, RESULTING FROM ONE’S OWN CHOICE 
A man’s worst situation is usually a site of his own 
selection. He ventures where he knows that there 
is quicksand, and, after that, feels never free to make a 
solitary movement — never sure about his ground, as 
people say. On Detective Duty , III. 

SKEPTIC 

As long as one thing in the world is wrong, 

Some skeptic should be here to think it so. 

Dante, n., I. 

SKILL 

Skill, the wage of duty 

In the Art Museum. 
SKYLIGHTS, EYES ARE 

The eyes are skylights of the soul. And I see better 
things for you, if you will but be true to that which 
dwells within you, — your better self; and what it 
wishes, let it do. The Little Twin Tramps, hi., 2. 
SLEEPISHNESS VS. PERSISTENCE 
When sleepy most men fail to notice things — the 
reason why mere blunt persistency succeeds on Wall 
Street. Men have been tired out. They sleep, they 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


35 * 

dream; and we, we stock their dream; they take our 
stock, and pay us for our pains. The Two Paths , iv. 

SLEEVES 

Waved her thanks, 
With white sleeves fluttering from her shapely sides — 
Ah me, a wing’d one sent to save my soul 
Had scarcely stirr’d in me a greater joy. 

Ideals Made Real t xvm. 

SLOWNESS, AND SAFETY 

The floods that rise fast, fall fast. If you wish for 
safety, slowness is more safe than swiftness. 

The Two Paths , n. 

SLOWNESS AND SURENESS 

Slowness at the start is often the very best means of 
securing sureness and swiftness at the finish. It takes 
much longer to build an automobile than a bicycle. 
But after the first has been prepared for its work, it 
can go much faster and further. 

Fundamentals in Education. 

SLUR 

Stop the echo after you have heard the sound that 
started it, then perhaps you can stop a slur after it has 
left the throat that uttered it. 

Modern Fishers of Men t vi. 

SMOKING AND YOUTH 

You know how smoking will dry the blood of hams 
and toughen them? It does the same, too, with the 
tender brains of boys and girls. You wait till you are 
older. The Two Paths , ill. 

smoking {see drinking) 

.... They say that in inebriate asylums they 
start out first by curing smoking habits. 

.... Of course. 

.... And earth would need few such asylums if all 
should start to keep our growing boys — and not to 
say our girls — from cigarettes. 

Tuition for her Intuition , n. 
smuggled spirits are strong 

No man can smuggle spirits in a keg. The little of it 
traveling in a bottle must go a long way. So it must 
be strong. Idem t hi. 


352 


A POET'S CABINET 


SNAKE {see line) 

Back slunk their line before us, 

A weary, wounded snake: 

Up hill, down dale, round river, 

It wound and bled and brake. 

The Rally of the Farmers. 

SNEAK 

A sneak, like a snake, never moves straight for- 
ward. If you think it going in one direction, it can 
prove by its wiggling that it’s going in another. It 
gets on all the same, though. 

What Money Can't Buy, i. 

SNOB 

For our race are too ready to turn with a sneer 
From arms that are brawny, and hands that smear. 
While a man is dependent, in need of a friend, 

The world is a snob, and shuns its own peer. 

When a man is a master, his need at an end, 

The world is a sycophant, cringing to cheer. 

Unveiling the Monument . 
Mean, cowardly souls, whose natures feel 
That they were born to cringe and kneel, 

And heed like dogs a master’s heel, — 

They show a due respect alone 
For those who fill, if not a throne, 

At least a station o’er their own. 

So must one’s worth that these despise 

Press on and up, until it rise 

And reach a place that all will prize. 

A Life in Song: Doubting, vn. 
SNOBISHNESS 
Me thought you know — 

.... What right had you to think? 

And if we know, is it our business 
To do your errands for you? 

Columbus , v., i. 

SNUBBING 

.... One can’t have all sorts of people coming to 
her house. 

.... No danger of that — with some of the other 
people you have coming here. If anybody needs to be 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


353 


snubbed, why not let them attend to the matter? 
Why foul your own nest? Leave your dirty work, as 
the Turks do in the streets of Constantinople, to the 
dogs that delight to bark and bite. 

.... You are complimentary to our guests. 

.... No; truthful and sensible. Let those that 
want to show their own superiority by exhibiting their 
ability to hurt the feelings, if not the fortunes, of 
others, hurt one another, not us. 

Where Society Leads , I. 

SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT, PERILS OF 
If made a member of our family, 

He might prove ours in all things. Few have brains 
Too cool and clear to feel a rise in blood 
And not be fevered and confused by it. 

Dante , I., 2. 

SOCIAL BETTERMENT, AN AIM OF RELIGION 
I know true faith that largely aims to rid 
Our present life from fears of future ill. 

To it what need of storms, if sunshine here 
May best prepare one for the future calm? 

That future is eternal ; even so 

How can we gauge th’ eternal save by time? 

How can we judge of joy that will not end, 

Save by our own, if ours would only last? 

What is it to be blessed, if not this, — 

To find our process of becoming blest 

Made permanent, our young weak wings of faith 

Full fledged and flying by habit? — and if so, 

Heaven’s habits are form’d here. Suppose a youth, 
That, by and by, he may enjoy much wealth, 

Act miserly, — what gains he by and by? — 

Much wealth, perhaps; but, holding with it, too, 

The miser’s moods, establish’d now as traits, 
Incorporated modes of all his life, 

He with them holds what most unfits the soul 
To use wealth, or enjoy it. So on earth 
When avarice, aim’d for heaven, makes man a monk, 
What can he gain thereby, save monkish moods, 
Become establish’d in him now as traits, 

Incorporated modes of all his life? 


23 


354 


A POET’S CABINET 


But, holding these, the soul must with them hold 
What most unfits it to enjoy — not here, 

In any sphere at all, — a life of love. 

Ideals Made Real , xlviii. 

SOCIAL VS. PERSONAL SUCCESS 

.... Social success. 

.... In a daughter, I should care more for per- 
sonal success. 

.... Same thing! 

.... Oh, no! — The same difference that there is 
between foreign and domestic. One depends on the 
state outside, the other on the state inside. A woman 
is happier, I think, when she has domestic success. 

Where Society Leads , I. 
SOCIETY 

When sad from self-satiety, 

Why should one shun society? — 

It rouses him from introspection, 

And routs his dreams of drear dejection. 

I think, as pools, whose overflow 
Not freely off through earth can go, 

Will breed foul mists, that reek and rise 
And dim the earth and cloud the skies, 

Our thoughts, if not allow’d to flow 
Toward others freely — who can know? — 

With vapory whims may blear the mood, 

And thus deform the objects view’d, 

And half the light of life exclude. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxv. 
Society is like the atmosphere : 

Is always round us, and is all alike — 

All warm in sunshine and all chill in storm. 

Columbus , iv., i. 

SOCIETY AND ARTIFICIALITY 
Where true love is the treasure to be sought, 
One glimpse of nature is a better guide 
Than all the forms of calculating art 
That ever powdered an instinctive flush, 

Or rouged pale hate, in any masquerade 
That men call good society. 


Cecil the Seer , I. 



Storms of swift and full distress 
May make of mind a wilderness, 

A flood of anguish bringing. 

See page 358. 































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355 


Ah, in our good society, 

(Where things that gain acceptancy 
Are fashion’s phrases, and an air 
Which, caught with neither thought nor care, 
Make wits and fools both equal there). 

A Life in Song : Doubting , xxvm. 

SOCIETY, AND FOLLOWING LEADERS 

.... It’s natural I should want to see you fill the 
place in life that I have gained for you. 

.... Yes, but 

.... Don’t butt at sheep. Your father means to 
say society are sheep that always follow leaders. 

.... Yes. 

.... And so, if you keep near the leaders, society 
will follow you. 

.... The Smiths are just as good as we are. 

.... Yes, that is true; but are they better? 

.... We ought to go then with our betters? — 
What if all others did the same? 

.... Well, fortunately for the few, the others 
usually are fools. The truth is others look at you in 
just the way you look at them. Look up and they 
look up to you. 

.... Come, come, now Uncle! — You believe all 
that? The Little Twin Tramps , n. 

SOCIETY, FOREIGN, VS. AMERICAN 

.... You wouldn’t have thought that they would 
introduce such a man into American society. 

.... Who would introduce him? 

.... The foreigners. 

.... Why not? You can’t blame them. The 
Count and the Baron were well connected. There was 
no mistake or misrepresentation. Their credentials 
were correct. 

.... But they were gamblers who came here to 
make money ; and the Count to marry for money. 

.... What of that? He made no secret of it. 
He did it openly. The fact that a man spends a month 
or two at Monte Carlo every year; and, when he runs 
out of money, marries a girl who has it, never seems to 
taboo him in the least in American society. A few 


356 


A POETS CABINET 


years ago I was at Aix-les-Bains. Every afternoon, 
at the Casino, in sight of everybody, a duke sat gam- 
bling behind a pile of gold as big as a rat-trap. At his 
side always sat a painted lady, known by everybody to 
be his mistress. What of that? Every evening, al- 
most without exception, he was dining, usually in the 
very next room, with rich Americans who were in- 
variably scrupulously careful to see that the fact was 
telegraphed to the Paris edition of the New York 
Herald. It was quite remarkable what pains they 
would take to let all the world know in what kind of 
society they were going. You can’t blame foreigners 
for doing what they can to assist such people to con- 
tinue to go in the same society. Why should they not 
assist them? — if that is supposed to be what we 
Americans want? 

.... You mean to say that Europeans have no 
regard for character. 

.... Not that, no; but that they think — and 
rightly — that our people have no regard for it. When 
we get to the border of their social pool, we are like 
children on the banks of a fishing pond. Anything 
with scales satisfies the children. Anything that has a 
scaly glitter — and often the more scaly the better — 
satisfies us. We forget that the pool has different kinds 
of occupants, and that we might often make a better 
haul outside of it than in it. Where Society Leads , hi. 

SOCIETY, SEGREGATING INFLUENCE OF 

The sea of life is filled with countless drops, but only 
those that rise and float the surface where dancing 
spray leaps flashing into sunlight can constitute 
society. Its life is never of the many, but the few; 
and these its influence mainly weans away from 
common sympathy with common people; — makes 
even men hold back from contact with these, and much 
more women. Why should they, forsooth, rub robes, 
touch hands, with dirt and soil? 

Tuition for her Intuition, I. 

SOCIETY, TYRANNY OF 

I don’t object to it. Why should I? What good 
would that do? We are all members of it, and have to 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


357 


be. I object merely to the tyranny of society, — to its 
crushing out individuality. I object to its expecting 
everybody to become its slave. 

Where Society Leads , i. 

SOCIETY VS. THE INDIVIDUAL AS A SOURCE OF GOOD 

The truth is that almost everything in the world of 
pure quality and permanent value has its source in the 
motives and opinions, not of people in general, but of 
certain people in particular. In human as in vegetable 
life — in the leaf and flower, for instance — develop- 
ment — all that makes for progress and reform — is a 
process of unfolding that which comes from within 
the individual. This is the natural way, and, so far 
as one can judge from nature, God’s way. Society 
seeks to change all this, — to dictate from without not 
only our modes of dressing and addressing, but of 
thinking and feeling. If the method of influencing 
the mind from within be of God, that which seeks to 
influence it from without is more likely than anything 
else to be of the devil. Idem. 

SOCIETY, WHEN IT SHOULD BE DISREGARDED 

One has to live in the world of society. But even 
there he can bear about with him a consciousness of 
living, too, in another world, — the inner world of 
mind; and whenever the laws of the two worlds con- 
flict — they by no means always do — then he can 
remember that it is his first duty to obey the law from 
within. Idem. 

SOFT MEN 

Men half done, like eggs 
Half boiled, are very soft. I much prefer 
To have them hard. Dante , I., I. 

SOIL 

A little black 

If mixed with white, may soil the white as much 

As all black would. Idem , i., 2. 

songs ( see music) 

A shadeless waste, a mist-hid sea, 

Were earth that knew no songs of glee; 

And what would heaven beyond it be 
If anthems ne’er were springing 


358 


A POETS CABINET 


From voices there, where funeral knells 
Are sweeter far than marriage bells 
To love call’d hence that ever dwells 
Within the sound of singing! 

A Song on Singing. 

SONGS AND RIGHT 

How oft, of old, when reign’d the wrong, 

And rare and regal rose in song, 

The call sublime that roused the strong 
From hut and hamlet springing, 

Like avalanches launch’d in might 
Where thunder shakes an Alpine height, 
Resistless down its path of white, 

Has right been led by singing. Idem. 

SORDID 

Life’s bright paths hold a sordid fold, — 

Hold men like cattle bought and sold, 

Who treat each sky-born child of truth 
As valiantly as bulls, forsooth, 

That goar, and tramp, and leave to moan 
Sweet children caught in pastures lone. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xx. 

SORROW AND SINGING 
The cares may come that track success, 

Or storms of swift and full distress 
May make of mind a wilderness, 

A flood of anguish bringing; 

The sorrows of the soul will rise, 

And pour their woe through weeping eyes, 

And drain at last the source of sighs, 

When hearts o’erflow in singing. 

A Song on Singing. 
soul {see sense and spirit) 

Is the soul indeed but matter, welded, moulded, 
multiple, 

White in snow and green in sunshine, by the storms 
dissolvable? 

Or is it a lingering breath that, snared to work these 
lobes of clay, 

Soon, like air that shapes the wind-cloud, passes through 
it and away? — A Life in Song: Watching , xxxi. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


359 


Warn men not to take 
Mere earth and sky for that one priceless jewel, 
The soul, that they encase. With care for it, 
The men who keep their spirits clean and clear 
From touch or taint of selfishness or vice, 

May oft behold in depths of inner life 
Which nearest lie to nature’s inner life, 

The image and the presence that reveal 
The power and purposes that are divine. 

Dante , hi., 2. 

What is the use of our learning, 

And toiling to come to the right, 

If none can know we are yearning 
To lead their spirits to light? 

What is an outward attraction, 

What is a power to control, 

If men through the guise of our action 
See nothing of God in the soul? 

A Life in Song: Loving , iv. 

He dreams of destiny, 
His whole soul in his work. That soul speaks out, 
And like a sovereign. Souls are sovereign always. 

Columbus , 1., 1. 

Who cares to doubt the tale, when told 
That seers with second seeing 
Behind the forms that all behold 
Discern a spirit's being? 

Past curtains keeping souls from sight, 

Who never found a friend there, 

Transfigured by a purer light 

Than earthly suns could send there? 

Who never felt an impulse true, 

A better self within him, 

A spirit yearning to break through 
This life from which *t would win him, 

Look through his frame and through each frame 
Of those about who love him, 

Till soul met soul with joy the same 
As fills the heaven above him? 

A Life in Song: Loving, vm. 


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Until with a strange and thrill’d surprise, 

I had found what look’d through her own deep eyes, 
And had watch’d like gestures from God the grace 
Of her beckoning form; and at last could trace 
Through coursing hues that would come and go 
Across the radiant veil of her face, 

The shade of her soul as it moved below. 

Idem , xxn. 

SOUL AND SERVICE 

.... My father’s maps 

.... Ay, they confirm twice over all my plan — 

Not they alone, but your directions with them. 

. . . . Mine? {Sitting with one hand resting on the 
map.) 

.... Yes, your fingers pointing out the course. 

It all is there, just there beneath your hand. 

A sailor steers the way his compass points. 

. ... Is that your compass? 

.... It might compass me — 

I mean my soul. 

. . . . That little hand? Oh, what 

A little soul! 

. . . . Do souls have size? One might 

Be universed in this; yet not contained 
In all the universe outside of it. 

. ... To put your soul thus in another’s hand, — 
Would that be wise? 

. . . . Why not? — the hand that serves 
The soul one loves may serve but selfishly, 

And yet serve best the one who trusts to it. 

. . . . But should it fetter him? — 

. . . . Then would he thrill 

In every atom of his frame to feel 
Its fingers’ throb and pressure. 

. . . . Would not bound 

Away? 

. . . . Away and up, but always back again, 

Like grains of sand in earthquakes. 

. • . . Foolish man! 

. . . . Why, only God is wholly wise; and I 

Am but a man — so never quite so manly 

As when — why, say — made foolish. Columbus , i., 2. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


361 


SOUL-LIFE, THE CONVERSE OF SENSE-LIFE 
Why should not those who were the most oppressed 
Have most that serve them where but souls are served? 
All things inverted and turned inside out, 

The last in station may become the first, 

The lowly lordlike and the high the low, 

The crown’d the chain’d, the crucified, the crown’d. 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2. 

SOUL-LIFE THE RESULT OF NATURAL GROWTH 
There are no vantage-platforms for the soul framed 
of mere outside gettings, like the logs men cut and 
wedge together. Soul-life grows ; and as it springs in 
youth, it sprouts in age. You split a living tree, and 
splice in limbs from trees around it, you destroy the 
whole. The Two Paths , iv. 

SOUL, NECESSARY FOR GREAT ENTERPRISES 
. . . . Any man who sails 

Across that unknown sea must have far more 
Than enterprise, experience, caution, skill, 

Knowledge of sail and compass, wind and star. 

The soul must be embarked upon the voyage 
With aims outreaching all that but concern 
The narrow limits of this earthly life. 

. . . . How few such men! Where would you find 
your crew? 

. . . . Wherever minds are subject to ideas. 

.... And where is that? — You judge men by your- 
self. 

.... I would not dare to boast such difference, 

Or so humiliate my humanity, 

As to presume it possible that aims 
Inspiring my own soul, if rightly urged, 

Would not inspire, too, many another. 

Columbus , 11., 3. 

SOUL, STATURE OF THE 

The stature of the soul is measured by 
The distance of its outgrowth over earth. 

Dante , III., 1. 

SOULS, SUBORDINATED TO EARTH 

One 

Must be what earth has made him. 


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.... Let me die 

Before I learn a lesson sad as that! 

.... Wise prayer! Ay it is mercy lets us die 
Before our souls decay — makes life more sweet 
To those who have to live it with us here. 

The Aztec God , iv., I. 

SOULS, THEIR DEPTHS 

In our souls, 

Far down within, are depths, like sunken seas, 

All dark! — yet only when concealed from light 
And from the face of love they else might image. 
And my soul — you should know its depths to know 
My coming joy. Cecil the Seer , ill., I. 

SOULS, WHEN MADE AGENTS OF EVIL 
If what the priesthood teach us be the truth, 

Ay, if the gods do everything, themselves, 

Why should they smut our mortal souls to stoke 
The fuel of their smoking fires on earth? 

The Aztec God t ill. 

SPARK OF GOOD 
Each slightest spark of good 
Flies upward, and the heaven returns it where 
It fires the most. Ideals Made Real , lxx. 

SPECIAL PLEADER 

A man for all mankind : — 
No special pleader for a special class 
Whose grasping greed crowds out the general good; — 
But one who pleads for all fair rights for all. 

Idem , lxv. 

SPECULATION, ENCOURAGING FINANCIAL 
You rushed the stock upon the market, like a 
running boy that trails a ruined kite; and by his 
running keeps it mounting higher. There comes a 
time that boy grows tired and halts; there comes a 
time when cheating fails to cheat ; there comes a time 
when fraud must go to jail. The Two Paths , 11. 

SPECULATION, THEOLOGIC 
These earthly eyes can never spy 
Beyond where heaven has hung the sky. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxxv. 


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363 


speech (. see talk and words) 

At times, I have found no need of speech. 

A simple wave of the hand, 

A shrug, a look, so far would reach 
That her soul could understand. 

Before my lips had time to frame 
The feeling that sprang to thought, 

Up out of her own fair lips there came 
The answer my soul had sought. 

I have learn’d from her with a sweet surprise 
How few are the words they need, 

Whose dimples and wrinkles of cheeks and eyes 
Write out what the soul can read. 

Idem , Loving , x. 

SPIDER 

Think how a spider must enjoy its web when 
thrilling with the misery and music of buzzing flies 
that it has caught! Here that? A rustling! I be- 
lieve her coming now. The Two Paths , 11. 

SPIRIT, THAT OF GOD {see CALL) 

Beneath the whir of worldly strife, 

All undisturb’d, there dwells a life 
That feels the tender infant-plea 
Of something grander yet to be. 

There winds do whisper, waves have speech, 

And shapes and shades have features each 
That friendly to the soul appear, 

And bring a Spirit subtly near, 

And make the truth of heaven seem clear. 
Perchance, when forced to gaze away 
From earth, to find life’s perfect day, 

A soul so yearns for what should be 
That God, who always will decree 
His presence where men bend the knee, 

Trails, through the strange unearthly light, 

His robes that, while they blind the sight, 

Yet lure men onward toward the right. 

A Life in Song: Doubting, xxxm. 

Ministers, I ween, 

Urge none in heathen lands to choose between 


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The good and ill, without attesting so 
That God’s good Spirit strives with all below. 

Idem , Seeking , xxvm. 

Might not He 

Whose good accepts the good where’er it be, 

And reads the inmost motives of the mind, 

In “every nation, people, kindred,” find 
Thron’d e’en behind the idols of each race, 

Ideals that human art could not make base? 

How sad if not ! This world’s theology 
Scarce blows a trumpet causing piety 
To kneel, ere out from opening mystery 
Sweeps forth, full mail’d, the world’s idolatry. 

It is not he of heathen name alone 

Who bows his knee to gilt and wood and stone. 

Where live the souls who seek God’s living truth 
Whom priest-craft does not find, and praise, for- 
sooth, 

Its own deeds, which it claims must lead the way 
And meditate for all men while they pray? 

Alas for man, thus made to look to man! — 

Just charity with kindlier eye might scan, 

Amid Athenian gods, a Socrates, 

Who would not bow in spirit e’en to these. 

Idem , xxix. 

SPIRIT, THAT OF MAN {see TEMPERAMENT) 

They will have done your spirit so much honor, 

It will be too much honored for this body. 

.... You mean the body will be too dishonored 
For any spirit to remain in it. 

.... Oh, not dishonored ere the godship leaves. — 
Then what does flesh devoid of god deserve? 

.... Damnation, if devoid of godship mean 
Devoid of spirit to defend the flesh. — 

The Aztec God , iv., 1. 

.... So women do not worship those they marry. 

. . . . Not after they have married them. 

. . . . Why not? 

.... They get too near them. 

.... Humph ! but that depends 

On what one means. They can not get too near 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


365 


To any one in spirit. 

. . . . What is that? 

.... That in us which has least of body in it ; 

And yet, like fire, may glow when bodies meet, 

And make one’s whole life luminous. 

Dante , in., 1. 

One fond of friends, who yet sought oft by choice 
In soulless forms to find a spirit’s face, 

In wordless tones a subtle thought to trace. 

A Life in Song: Daring , lvi. 
Next to honoring the holiest spirit one ought to 
honor spirits that are like it. On Detective Duty , 1. 

A spirit’s best is always done just where its love has 
placed it. The Two Paths , 1. 

A spirit’s measure is its outlook. Find 
A man horizoned by the whole broad world 
Who sees it all in all, he stands a son 
Of God ! — is here to do his Father’s work ; 

And you should join in it, or not join him. 

Columbus , 11., 3. 

He seems a spirit lured to gates of dawn 
That, venturing near the clouds when all aflame, 
Had been snatched up within their ardent arms 
And borne to earth with all their glow about him. 

The Aztec God , 111. 

SPIRIT, THAT IN A MAN WHICH INSPIRES 

In the end 

As the beginning, nothing thrives but spirit. 

If trusted, it survives too, every time. 

Columbus , 1., 1. 

Life grows here like a tree with outer branches 
Too broad for any handling, but with trunk 
So small and slender that a single hand 
Can fix its destiny for earth or heaven. 

The trunk of all that lives is in the spirit. 

But find the hand that can be laid on that, 

You find what brings to all things bloom or blight 

Dante, 11., 1. 

O could we in our misgivings only see and hear once 
more 


3 66 A POET'S CABINET 

What our fathers thought so bless’d them, when the 
heavens unclosed of yore ; 

Ere men’s eyes intent on matter, minding not what 
o’er them towers, 

Lost their spirit-sight, if not their right to know and 
use its powers ; 

Ere men’s wits were ground to tools more sharp than 
blades, but narrow too, 

Plied at earth our day makes brighter but to hide the 
stars from view ! 

Is it wise, — belief so bounded as to let three hundred 
years 

Of the faith of half of Europe give the lie to all the 
seers? 

Is it wise, — the mean ideal, whether form’d of man or 
God, 

Deeming truth in all religions born and bred in con- 
scious fraud? 

Is it wise, — the church, assuming mortals once could 
hear and see 

Sounds and shapes from realms immortal, but that 
now this cannot be? 

Is it wise, — the coward science, which, when faith its 
aid requests, 

Frighten’d still by Salem’s witches, does not dare 
apply its tests? 

Witchcraft probed, might burst the bubble of the 
world’s religious frauds, — 

Showing seers themselves deceived, who deem all 
power beyond them God’s; 

And, with seers, the seers’ disciples, who, with pride of 
mind and will, 

Fix belief, prohibit thought, and bid the truth, for- 
sooth, stand still. 

Powers beyond us may be finite; nor can ever tell or 
do 

Aught that frees the mind that heeds them from its need 
of reason too. 

A Life in Song: Watching , xxxn. 

Why differs it, though they may rise on earth 

Impelled through emulation to enforce 

Their wills on others ; or through appetite 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


367 


May fall, and yield control of reason’s reins 

To that which drives them on to lust and crime? — 

A spirit that inspires through selfishness 

To mean success or failure, equally 

May vex as by a devil made incarnate 

Oneself and all about him. 

. . . . Poor weak man! 

. . . . Weak ever — save when conscious of his need. 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2. 

SPIRIT, THAT IN A MAN WHICH SURVIVES DEATH ( See 
RECEPTIVITY) 

We have left the bounds of matter; here are burst the 
prison bars, 

Out from which, with powers contracted and a weary 
sense of strife, 

Souls, like convicts through their grating, steal a 
luring glimpse of life. 

Here are regions where the spirit, freed from fettering 
time and space, 

Wings her flight through scenes eternal, reading 
thought as face reads face. 

Here the good reveal their goodness, and the wise their 
wisdom show ; 

And from open minds about them souls learn all that 
souls can know. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xiv. 

If one’s own spirit tempt not astray, 

But only the senses it fails to sway, 

Where worth is judged by spirit, I dream 
That some prove better than here they seem. 

The Last Home Gathering. 

In the world brains mould to bodies, but across its 
border-line 

Royal minds must share their purple. Slaves with 
kings become divine. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xv. 
The one that led to the best things here 
Must be some spirit that heaven holds dear. 

The Last Home Gathering. 

. . . . Can mortals aid immortals? 

. . . . Life is one. 


368 


A POETS CABINET 


Our daily deeds bring sweeter dreams at night; 

And sweeter dreams more strength for daily deeds. 

If thought may pass from sphere to sphere, why not 
The benefit of thought? Cecil the Seer , n., 2. 

SPIRIT IN NATURE 

How vain to let affections all go forth 
To things material, hard and heavy foes, 

Whose mission is to fall at once and crush, 

Or, through long labor, wear our spirits out ! 

How much more wise, behind the shape, to seek 
The substance, and, in sympathy with it, 

Learn of the life that never was created 
But all things were created to reveal ! 

Ah, he who learns of this, and comes to live 
In close communion with it, finds, at times, 

When Nature whom he loves has laid aside 
Her outer guise and clasps him to her heart, 

That there are mysteries, not vague but clear, 

Not formless but concrete, which, it must be, 

That those alone can know, or have a right 
To know, who always, like a faithful spouse, 

Have kept their spirits to the spirit true. 

West Mountain. 

SPIRITUAL, THE, VS. THE MATERIAL ( See WORLDLINESS) 
Bound down to petty tasks, more useless ye 
Than ships loosed never from their anchorage, 

Nor sailed to ports for which they have been freighted. 
Oh, think ye ends that souls were made to gain 
Were ever reached by one who never breathed 
A higher air, or saw a higher sight 
Than those on which contracted brows are bent 
In library or laboratory? — what? — 

Does thought grow broader, whittled down to point 
At microscopic nuclei of dust, 

As if the world were by, not with, them built? — 

As if the game of true success were played 
By matching parts whose wholes are curios? 

Nay, nay! Life’s greatest gain is life itself; 

And life, though lived in matter, is not of it; 

Not of the object that our aims pursue, 

Not of the body that pursues it, not 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


369 


Of all the world of which itself and us 
Are parts. Nay, all things that the eye can see 
Are but vague shadows of reality 
Cast on a frail environment of cloud, — 

But illustrations of a general trend 
Which only has enduring entity, 

And is, and was, and always must be, spirit. 

Berlin Mountain . 

SPONGE, ANIMAL OR HUMAN 
That soft thing termed a sponge 
Will always hug you, when in touch with it. 

But no one finds the least impression left 
When you are not in touch with it. 

Dante , I., 2. 

SPORT, A FINANCIAL 

.... The trouble is that you are not a sport — finan- 
cial sport, I mean. — Is just a danger that sometime 
you may fail to play the game, and lose. 

.... I have too much imagination. I sometimes 
think of — and think with, I fear — the other fellow. 

.... And to be successful in business a man should 
think about only himself and his own interests. 

.... Yes, yes — and no — is only true in part. Yet 
if success to you mean sudden gain, and great gain, 
and obtained with little work, you may be right. 

The Two Paths, iv. 

SPRINGTIME 

The time of year it was, when nature seems 
In mood most motherly, with every breath 
Held in a mild suspense above a world 
Of just born babyhood, when tiny leaves, 

Like infant fingers, reach to drain warm dews 
From palpitating winds, and when small brooks 
Do babble much, birds chirp, lambs bleat, and then, 
While all around is one sweet nursery, 

Not strange it seems that men ape childhood too, 

And lisp — ah me ! — minute the syllables, 

Yet still too coarse for love’s ethereal sense! 

Haydn , ill. 

Who feel like springing in the Spring? . . . 

Yet all life may spring on as bodies do 


24 


370 


A POET'S CABINET 


That draw first back, or down, and then leap up. 

To feel relax’d, perchance, prepares one best 
To leap the hedge of each untested year; 

First action, then reaction — eh, not so? — 

And think — The same may form the law of souls : 
They stoop, then rise; they kneel, then know of 
heaven. Idem, iv. 

SPY, A MORAL 

What need that I 

Play spy here to Monaska and Waloon? — 

Trail like a reptile’s tail to prove them brutes, 
Where’er the love goes, which but proves them human? 
The power that makes a man who would stand straight 
Prostrate and prostitute his nobler nature, 

Sneak, dodge, crawl, shadow spirits bright as theirs, 
May come from gods, but, if so, they have lent 
This part of their dominion to a devil. 

The Aztec God , hi. 
SQUEEZING OUT MONEY 

.... Last night, you seemed too squeamish. In 
a broker that scarcely does. 

.... He should not squirm but squeeze; — and 
wring the water on his customers ? The Two Paths , iv. 
STAGE AND GALLERIES {see PULPIT ) 

Did you ever find 

That ever, when the seers look forth through heaven, 
They view there pews and pulpits? — Nay, not so: 

Yet oft they note a stage and galleries, 

All throng’d with white-robed hosts attendant there. 
So these, you see, at times may hint of good. 

Ideals Made Real , xxxi. 

STAGE OF A THEATER, ALL LIFE IS 
Ay, whether we may march our frames to greet 
The cannon’s mouth, or duty’s commoner call, 

Go where death threatens, or long seems to tarry, 
One destiny, at last, awaits us all : 

Upon life’s little stage the play will close, 

The curtain drop, and leave the actor dead. 

Yet, soldiers, what care you, or what care I? — 

The souls that fight for truth, beyond scenes here, 
Find life that does not end in tragedy; 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


37i 


For all our world is but a theater 
Outside whose walls, where shine the stars of heaven, 
The actors with their rdles and robes laid by 
May all meet smiling in the open air. 

Cecil the Seer , ill., 2. 
STAKE ONE’S ALL 

Better to stake one’s all on some high cause 
And lose, than never know the spirit’s thrill 
When gates of heaven are seen, past mortal ill, 

Though light that bursts from them at once withdraws. 

Staking All. 

STAR PERFORMER 
.... But I must practice now. 

.... Hard work? — Not so? 

.... Oh yes — down here . . . but higher up, 
where one can breathe free air, and be a star, I guess 
it’s easy there as it is bright. 

The Little Twin Tramps , v. 

STARS 

The stars like sparks that linger where the fire of sun- 
set dies. A Life in Song: Dreaming , 11. 

STARS, MESSAGE OF THE 

I believe, 

Though hard the drill that trains the soul to read it, 
That every message of the stars is written 
In letters one can learn to spell on earth. 

Dante , 11., 1. 

STATEMENT, ONE TEST OF ITS TRUTH 

A statement that confutes a general faith, 

At risk of reputation ; yet meantime 
Confirms our natural reasoning, seldom lies. 

Who would have said this, had it not been true? 
Yet that it should be, what more natural? 

Columbus , 11., 2. 

STATION, TROUBLES OF EXALTED {see HONORS IN 
OFFICE) 

You know heads crown’d with flowers 
Nod most for bees that buzz and sting about them. 

Cecil the Seer y 1. 

STATUES 

Statues, white robed, such as art redeems 


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A POETS CABINET 


From the fate of fellow-fancies, when, too soon, they 
die in dreams. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxxii. 
Shapes were there of every kind 

Crystallized to forms of art from flooding thoughts 
within the mind. Idem. 

storm : its approach {see thunder) 

Off through the wild November sky, 

A storm, was it, that there drew nigh? 

Or was it a pall-car of the dead 

With crape-like curtains round it spread? 

And oh, was a death-doom ever due 
But lives that were sunny before it flew? 
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, as the thing came on, 

To have seen the hurry and scurry, anon! 
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, to have seen the way 
The breezes before it began to play ! — 

It came like a boy who whistles first 
To warn of his form that shall on us burst, 

As if nature feared to jar the heart 
By joys too suddenly made to start. 

It came like the peck on the blind by a bird 
That taps for help when a hawk is heard ; 

It came like the shot of the pickets of rain 
When sunshine flies from a window-pane. 

But who of us ever can judge the way 
A storm will strike from its first felt spray? 

The walkers without soon found in the sleet 
A net that was tripping their floundering feet, 

A veil that was falling as light as lace 
But snapped as it hit each stinging face, 

Then shattered to scatter the street below 
With hail-shot followed by smoke of snow. 

The snow, it followed and lay like soot 

Swept down from realms its white could pollute. 

Or was it, instead, a pure rug spread 

For the feet that came in that car of the dead? 

The Last Home Gathering. 

STRANGE 

So very strange 

It seems that when I think it can be true, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


373 


I pause to listen for the morning bells 
To wake me from a dream. Columbus , v. f 2. 
STRANGE IDEAS 

If more people had strange ideas, fewer would have 
wrong ones. Where Society Leads , 1. 

STRANGENESS 

If strangeness were a test of what is false, 

Most things that are believed would not be true. 

Cecil the Seer, 11., 2. 
STRANGER ( See ALONE) 

On every side, I see the stranger smile, 

And hear anon his ringing laughter bound. 

I heed it, as within some chapel aisle 

One in his coffin seal’d might hear the sound 
Of his own burial hymn, when it had drown’d 
His last faint cry of “murder!” He were blest 
To have those friends his final woe surround. 

But who would mourn for me? my soul’s unrest 
The very grave might shrink from, as a worrying 
guest. A Life in Song: Daring , xli. 

I might not then seem whirl’d 
From a star afar in space, 

A stranger into a stranger-world, 

To seek but find no face 
To tender my soul a welcome home, 

Where its inward wish would cease to roam. 

A Life in Song: Loving, xv. 

STREET LAMPS 

Hung high above this crape-like dusk of night, 
The star-lights flicker, and, with star-like light, 
The street-lamps ranged in order round me glow. 
What victor’s pall was ever lighted so? 

Midnight in a City Park. 

STRENGTH VS. SPIRIT 

And that would bring the whole our city needs, — 
Not strength so much to fight the force without 
But spirit to unite the force within. 

Dante, 11., 1. 

STRIFE AND STORM 

Never while these years are waiting for a nobler worth 
in man, 


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While the strife for life continues, does the dark hide 
all the van. 

Howe’er thickly clouds may gather, howe’er fierce the 
storm may be, 

Even down the thunder’s pathway trembles light by 
which to see. A Life in Song: Watching, xxv. 

STRIKE, A LABOR 

It’s not for theft we strike that want an honest 
wage for honest work. The Little Twin Tramps , I. 

The fools! — to seek for favors thus. A man who’s 
struck at will strike back. Idem , n. 

stupidity {see knaves) 

Ah, next to deviltry, the devil himself likes nothing 
better than stupidity. The Two Paths , I. 

STYLIST, HIS USE OF FORM 

We all admit that genius, especially literary genius, 
is characterized by brilliance. A brilliant concen- 
trates at a single point all the light of all the horizon, 
and from thence flashes it forth intensified. This is 
precisely the way in which a brilliant stylist uses 
form. In describing anything in nature, he selects 
that which is typical or representative of the whole, 
and often not only of the whole substance of a scene, 
but even of its atmosphere. Art and Education. 

SUBTLETY, BECAUSE OF SPIRITUALITY 
Deem not the worthiest art-work wrought by those 
Whose thoughts and aims are easiest to find. 

Full oft the purpose that it subtly shows 
Will long elude the keenest searching mind; 

And, sometimes, not before this life shall close 
Can what it means for spirit be divined. 

The Final Verdict. 

SUCCEED 

And oh, how many and many a tomb 
Of a dead hope, buried and left in gloom, 

Must mark the path of the man whose need 
Is taught through failure how to succeed! 

And oft how long, ere he know of this, 

Will hard work doom 
His heart that in sympathy seeks for bliss 
To a life as lone as death in a tomb, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


375 


Where sweetness and light 
Are all shut out, 

Nor a flower nor a bird 
Is heeded or heard, 

Nor often, if ever, there comes a sight 
Of a friend who cares what he cares about, 

Or is willing to soil 
A finger with even a touch of his toil! 

Unveiling the Monument , 
Ah me, the pilots of sure success 
Sail not at random, nor steer by guess. 

The voyage of life is a voyage for naught, 

If souls keep not to one thing sought, 

And never forget to give it their thought. 

Love and Life , xr. 

What seems to one success, to others may mean 
mere escape from failure. The Two Paths , i. 

Awake, my soul, and strain each power 
That hints of effort. Let the hour 
Of sleep, that was, watch armor-clad; 

Calm seem a pest; contentment mad; 

And slander’d patience onward press 
Till steadfast force achieve success. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , vir. 

SUCCESS, DEPENDENT ON SELF 

I’ve been thinking, lately, that success may not 
depend upon situations as much as on ourselves; not 
upon conditions as much as on the way in which we 
meet and master them. 

What Money Can’t Buy , iv. 

SUCCESS, PROSPECT OF 

No man, if wise, will waive from what he plans 
The prospect of success. If you attempt it, 

Trust me to thwart you. Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 

SUCCESS, THE EARTHLY SOURCE OF 

The power that crowns one with success on earth 
Is earthly. Keen men know this. Not, not God: 

The devil rules the world. 

. . . . God overrules it. 

• ... In far results, but in the near ones never! 

. . . . Then look to far results. Transferring there 


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These transient whims, — ah you will find them melt. 
Like summer mist, while, rock-bound under them, 
Each goal remains that your true nature craves. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 

SUGGESTIONS, LITTLEST 

The littlest bird-track, sometimes, in the sand 
May make one think of wings flown out of sight. 

Idem. 

SUGGESTIONS OF WHOLES FROM PARTS {see GENERAL 
and parts) 

Meantime, confined 

Where only finite form can hint of what 
Inspires formation, many souls there are — 

Oh, may I join them! — who, in all things earthly, 
Behold what evermore transfigures earth. 

No scene can greet them but it brings to sight 
Far less than to suggestion; not a tone 
Whose harmony springs not from overtones; 

And not a partial stir but, like a pulse, 

It registers what heart-beat moves the whole. 

Berlin Mountain. 
This world contains two kinds of people, Cino,— 
The kind who see the whole thing in its parts, 

And those who see the parts, and not the whole. 

Dante , in., i. 

suitors {see courting and flirt) 

Some men are suitors who offer their hands 
Like the opening palms 
Of beggars when kneeling and asking for alms ; 

But the one that pays heed 
They clutch in their greed, 

Turning fingers to fists and prayers to commands. 

Love and Life , xxxm. 

SUNSET 

The sun has touch’d the earth. See how its disk, 
Red-hot against the river, starts the mist, 

Like steam, to drive us home. Haydn , iv. 

Then I turn’d and watch’d the sunset, with emotions 
vague and wild, 

Till I seem’d a thing scarce human, strange as mys- 
tery’s very child. 


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377 


Not of earth nor heaven appear’d I. I was one with 
that mild light, 

Which had veil’d in awe the hills before the hush’d 
approach of night; 

And through all the clouds that floated rose the forms 
of angels fair, 

And I seem’d to heed their whispers in the movements 
of the air. 

Far adown the west I track’d them, till there met my 
wondering gaze 

Mountains in the sky that fring’d a sky-set sea begirt 
with haze, — 

Haze from shore-sand bright as gold-dust blown to 
clouds by winds of noon ; 

But across the sea’s blue depth appear’d to sail the 
crescent moon. 

Scarce I saw this, when beyond it I descried with 
pleasure great 

Outlines of a heavenly port illumed as for a heavenly 
f£te. 

Ah, how wondrous was that city, rear’d amid the 
cloud-land bright, 

Where that sunset capt the climax of the day’s com- 
pleted light. 

How the wall that coil’d around it glow’d along its 
winding way ! 

And how flash’d the floods of flame that in the moat 
before it lay ! 

What though underneath their splendor stretch’d a 
storm-cloud black and long? 

’T was a bass-note held beneath that sweeter o’er it 
made the song. 

For, above, as if aspiring toward the heaven’s enkin- 
dled fires, 

Toward the sky in countless numbers, press’d the 
domes and pierc’d the spires; 

Domes, high arch’d, with tints to rival rainbows in 
their every hue, 

Join’d with spires from darkness pushing, till their 
peaks effulgent grew ; 

Spires like prayers that start from anguish, aim’d for 
where all blessings are, 


378 A POETS CABINET 

Spires like hope that falters never while above it 
shines a star. 

Then — and how my gaze profan’d them* — what re- 
treats for bliss appear’d 

In those fair illumined mansions that along the streets 
were rear’d ! — 

Streets like shafts of light far shooting, fading like 
the sun from view, 

Back of trees with leaves like autumn’s, when life’s 
fires have burned them through. 

In my soul I half believed I longed to leave this earthly 
star, 

Gazing like the seer on Pisgah, toward that promised 
land afar. A Life in Song: Dreaming , iv and v. 

SUNSET, THAT OF LIFE 

Life I watch, like one at sunset, high upon some 
western hill, 

Looking eastward while the sunbeams with their light 
the valleys fill. 

He beholds a world of beauty, and its darkest shade is 
cast 

By his own sun-girded shadow, stretching o’er it, 
vague and vast. 

Life to me lies like his view there, when a storm has 
thunder’d by, 

And the forests flash with raindrops, and a rainbow 
bends on high. 

Brightly gleam the plains below him, where the golden 
rivers run; 

Brightly glow the clouds above him, where in glory 
sets the sun; 

And he knows night’s curtain, falling o’er the little 
world he sees, 

Falls away from heaven to show there worlds of 
worlds whose light it frees. 

Thus I watch the earth and air, and find that age like 
youth is bright, 

And life’s eve and dawn, like day’s, are flush’d the 
most with heavenly light. Idem , Watching , I. 

SUPERFICIALITY OF THINKING 
How many people, do you suppose, look beneath the 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


37 9 


surface of anything? I am inclined to believe that 
most men would start out to walk over the quicksands 
of the bottomless pit if only the sun should happen to 
strike the surface so as to make it seem, for the time 
being, a little bright. What Money Can't Buy , iv. 
SUPERSTITION 

Who loves not, where all shapes and sounds we test 
So charm us by the mysteries they suggest, 

To throw aside, or strive to throw, at least, 

Beliefs that satisfy our times, and feast 
On superstition, and half credit freaks 
With which fair fancy lured those dreamy Greeks. 
Our older age has dropt the young world’s joys, 
And takes life earnestly; but it employs 
Its ardor too much like an o’ergrown boy’s, 

Whose fist and arm so often plied in strife 
But show his brain is weak. There are in life 
Deep truths we value not. We rend apart 
The forms of nature, but have little heart 
To prize the hints to thought that meet our view. 
And we forget that mysteries too are true; 

And we forget the bourn beyond the blue; 

And we forget about the silent pall; 

And faith, which only holds the key of all. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , vi. 

SUPPLIANT 

Wise men do not greet 
A suppliant with too open hand and heart. 

Did gentleness not midwife his desires, 

His cries would sooner die for lack of nursing. 
And so I think they best refuse requests 
Who best refuse to hear them. 

The Aztec God , hi. 

SUPPOSING 

Almost all men’s failures spring from supposing 
when one might be sure. Do you suppose your 
matches are put out before you lock them in your 
writing desk? On Detective Duty , III. 

sure {see duplex and love) 

O stars of heaven so pure, 

O buds of earth so sweet, 


3So 


A POET'S CABINET 


What souls can ever be sure, 

When hues like yours they meet, 

That they move to aught with thrilling breath 
Except to danger and to death? 

O maiden eyes more pure, 

O rose-red lips more sweet, 

What hearts can ever be sure 
That thrill with you to meet, 

That aught awaits the panting breath 
That does not lure true love to death? 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxv. 

SURPRISING BY THOUGHTS 

Those who suppress their thoughts for fear of 
surprising others seldom speak the truth. 

What Money Can't Buy , ill. 
surroundings (see association) 

This is a world where we must judge of most things, as 
of souls, by their surroundings. The Two Paths, I. 
Souls make their own surroundings, moving on 
Through lights and shadows by their presence cast; 
And paths, with these all gone, seem changed anon, 
When seen by those who trod them in the past. 

A Life in Song: Serving , I. 
For on this voyage of life, not seas alone, 

But skies — all things about us — mirror back 
The souls that they surround. With each to him 
That hath, is given back more of what he hath: 
One smiles at aught, it gives him back a smile; 

He frowns, it gives a frown; he looks with love, 

He finds love; but without love, none can find it. 
Alas, that men should think one secret fault 
Can hide itself. Their sin will find them out. 
Before, behind, from every quarter flash 
Their moods reflected. Let them tell the tale, 

Nay, let them whisper, glance, or shrug one hint 
Of what they find in earth about, and lo! 

In this, their tale of it, all read their own. 

Haydn , xv. 

SURROUNDINGS, INFLUENCE OF, ON THOUGHT 
Oh, does it profit naught that one should dwell 
Amid surroundings that no eyes can see 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


381 


Save as they look above, no feet can leave, 

To seek the outer world, save as they climb? 
Where every prospect homes itself on high, 

And each horizon seems a haunt of heaven? 

Grey lock. 

As long as thinking can be shaped by things, 

And that which holds our life can mold our love. 

Idem. 

Susceptibility {see sensitive.) 

His mien, like water, imaged life around it ; 

And, chang’d by each new-comer’s wish or whim, 

A mirror to reflect whatever found it, 

A man could read some men through what they 
saw in him. A Life in Song: Serving , 111. 
No doubt, in youth 

There were times when the joy in his heart overran 
At a smile from one who knew him in truth ; 

There were times, years later, when merely a tear 
From a grateful eye 
Would have seem’d more dear 
Than all the glitter that gold could buy; 

But, alas! in age, when character stands 
As fix’d as yon monument, then it demands, 

Ere aught can move it, far more, far more 

Than the cheer or the sigh that had stirr’d it of yore. 

Unveiling the Monument . 
SUSCEPTIBILITY AND COURAGE 

Genuine susceptibility is the condition of all true 
courage. Suggestions for the Spiritual Life , xvi. 

SUSCEPTIBILITY, WOMAN’S 

Why, what were woman’s nature, void of fine 
Susceptibility on edge to play 
Society’s deft weather-vane? 

Columbus , iv., 1. 
sweet {see harmony and music) 

Sweet it was as if the heavens would all their sweet 
store shower below ; 

And by one flood quench forever all the thirst of 
mortal woe; 

And my moods were swept before it in a spell resistless 
bound. 


A POETS CABINET 


382 

As a sailor, sinking softly, where the deep sea laps him 
round. 

But can I recall the song now? — Better bid yon 
meadow nook 

Hold the whole great rain that blest it on its journey 
down the brook. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , vm. 

SWEETHEART, HOW TO JUDGE A 

No man of us knows a sweetheart until he has 
heard and seen her when not on her guard. 

The Ranch Girl, 1. 

SWINE 

Cook soup for swine! 

They leave you, if they fail to find it swill; 

Or else, in greed to get it, trip and tramp you. 

They harm you for your help; and still stay swine. 

Dante , 1., 2. 

SWORD 

Who, when arbitration once has been submitted to 
the sword, 

Dare or care to shield the wrong from shot and shell 
against it pour’d? 

A Life in Song: Watching , hi. 

SWORD AND SENSE 

. . . . Now by my sword! 

.... Nay, nay; but by your sense. 

What fevers both of you is no disease 
That can be cured by surgery. 

.... By what then? 

.... By stimulants. Accurse to cutting down, 
When one can gulp down! Save your health for me, 
And, while you sheathe your swords, pledge gratitude 
For such delicious ways of sheathing spirits. 

Dante, I., 1. 

sympathy (. see regard and words) 

Our human thought, whose efforts, aim’d afar. 

Have learn’d so much of sun and moon and star, — 
’T is time it tell us mortals what we are. 

’T is time our wandering world’s philosophy 
Discern life’s inward bond of unity, — 

Not like the Greek in mere material fire, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


383 


But in the soul’s unquenchable desire. 

’T is time it weigh the worth of arguments, 

That treat each consciousness with reverence; 

And, starting with the soul’s first certainty, 

Evolve in all its order’d symmetry 
The universal law of sympathy. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , lv. 
Not long a philosophic, loving mind 

Can well endure all dearth of sympathy. 

To seek this kindly, and yet fail to find, 

Makes lack of welcome seem hostility. 

Idem, Serving , vm. 
Like a lake, 

Whose fogs unfold, when comes a genial sun, 

Her moods unfolded to my sympathy; 

And, brightly imaged in her nature’s depths, 

I seem’d, at every turn, to face my own. 

Ideals Made Real , xix. 
Nor therefore view with heartless unconcern 
Each special aim of manhood’s general dust; 

But fan each spark of ardor that may burn 

In breasts that in their own soul’s calling trust. 

For though to reach their goals men from us sever, 
Why, in their hearts, may not heave ceaselessly, 

As in our own, an endless want that never 

Can free those from ourselves who need our sym- 
pathy. A Life in Song: Serving , lxxvii. 

So new to me such views were, that I felt 
As thrill’d as feels the savage maid, when first 
She finds her own face in a stranger’s glass, 

Then spell-bound lingers, learning of herself. 

So wrapt, my wonder hung, all wistfully, 

About that spirit bright. What meant it all? 

I could not then believe, — I scout it yet, — 

That mortals can afford to slight the souls 
Reflecting theirs, who make them mind themselves 
And prize the good they own, and dread the ill. 

Ideals Made Real , xix. 

Oh what a world is this for souls to live in! — 

For spirits whose one deepest wish it is 
To think at one with others like themselves, 


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And all together think one thought of God! 

But here one knows no wishes not imprisoned 
Where all the implements to set him free 
Are but these clumsy tools of breath and brawn. 

Dante , i., 2. 

SYMPATHY IN SORROW 

Our sorrows are half lifted when the souls 

Of our true friends have come to bear them with us. 

Idem , 11., 1. 

SYMPATHY, INDIVIDUAL NOT COMMUNAL 

When the heart 

Sinks deep as mine, touch deft enough to reach it 
Requires a single hand, not many. 

Idem, 1., 2. 

SYMPATHY, LACK OF 

.... Poor, lonely man! 

.... His own fault — would not have 

A soul go with him. 

.... Why should he? To minds 

In which the spirit so subdues the sense, 

A lack of sympathy itself is absence. 

Columbus, 11., 3. 

SYMPATHY, RECEIVED WHERE GIVEN 

Nor long was it ere I had grown to share 
In all the love of all with whom I met; 

And oft, too, thus invoking sympathy, 

My wishes wrought like witches, and conjured 
The thing they wish’d for: sympathy would come. 

Ideals Made Real, xliv. 

SYMPATHY, WHEN MERELY SUPERFICIAL 

We all should sympathize. All own one lord; 

All wait beside one shore; all watch one tide. — 

So too do snipes and snails! and so do souls 
That yet shall rule in heaven ten towns and one. 
Souls differ, . . . John from James, as well 
As both from Judas. — Judas lingers too. 

Idem, xlvii. 

When hearts hold secrets, even love that comes, 

And comes in crowds, will bring the prying soul 
Full drive to spring them open. How I shrank 
To meet with those with whom my soul could find 


Woman’s grief, 

If there be any manhood left in him, 

Will rouse his efforts to bespeak her peace. 

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SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


385 


No source of sympathy, but parrot-sounds 
Produced when tongue and teeth and lips combine 
To mouth one shibboleth! A fate like this 
Foretoken’d only, made me wellnigh faint 
As feels a soldier, falling at his post, 

With heart shell’d out and emptied of the soul. 

Idem , xlvi. 

TABLE, DINING 

. . . I’ll call you when the table’s ready. Poor 
thing, with twice as many feet as you have, it can’t 
walk up stairs. 

.... It must be very full. 

.... It will be. You’ll find it something like a 
pigeon, a better carrier than a walker; and you can 
pluck it all you wish. The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 
tact {see device) 

O how oft when stirr’d to rescue those we love from 
threaten’d woe, 

And to point them toward the pathways, where in 
safety men may go, 

Our own lack of tact or temper has equipt advice 
amiss, 

Frail as truth that veils its features in the guise of 
prejudice. A Life in Song: Dreaming , ix. 

The very pack of howling sea winds loosed to drive 
the skilful pilot from his course he harnesses to his own 
purposes by turning, twisting, bracing, while he yields, 
— by not attacking what he thwarts, but tacking. 
So, too, a man can meet opposing forces with what the 
world terms tact. The Two Paths , 1. 

talk vs. action {see deeds and words) 

Oh, to talk the truth 
Is easy as to breathe. To live the truth, 

And, mailed in its pure radiance, burn to black 
The shade its white heat severs, needs a strength 
To suffer hatred and inspire to love, 

Half hell’s, half heaven’s, and wholly Christ’s. 

Columbus , 11., 3. 
TALK, EMOTIONAL 

The worst disease I know of is the one that breaks 
out in these running sores of talk; and most contagious 


386 


A POETS CABINET 


too. Its victims think they always must express their 
sentiments — not facts pale white, but ruddy with 
emotion; and human beings are like bulls — you wave 
a little red at them, or let them see what brings a red 
flush on yourself, they fight. 

Tuition for her Intuition , I. 

TALKATIVENESS 

Some people’s ears and throats are so near together 
that when you tickle the one you are sure to hear 
from the other. What Money Can't Buy , n. 

TALKING AND THINKING 
Most men’s thoughts are led, you know, 

In trains of their own talking. Talk them down, 
They lose their leader. Keep on talking then, 

They find in you another. Any sound 

You choose to make, they take for sense. Why not? 

That course has grown to be their habit. 

Columbus , hi., 2 . 

TALKING VS. THINKING 

.... With all their talk, one might suppose them 
thinking now. 

.... Oh, no; the parrots talk, and men may make 
most noise because, like engines letting off their steam, 
their minds are not at work. 

Tuition for her Intuition , I. 

TASTE 

No fish are drawn 
Except by hooks first baited to their taste. 

Dante , I., 2. 

TASTES 

These dainty despots of desire, our tastes 
The worst of tyrants are ; nor brook offense. 

Haydn , xx n. 

TEACHER, THE 

The autocrat’s pride in his haughtier train, 

The miser’s elutch for the glut of his gain, 

Are as shade to the light, 

Are as hell to a heaven, compared to their lot 
Though humble and poor, whose lives incite 
And train men’s thinking that else were not. 

Love and Life , x. 


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387 


TEACHER, QUALITIES OF A GOOD 

For a teacher 

A knowledge of mere books does not suffice; 

He needs a knowledge too of human nature; 

And sympathy, to make his teaching welcome; 
And fire, to make it felt; and tact and skill, 

To aim and temper it for others’ needs ; 

And modesty to keep his own acquirements 
In strict-held servitude to their demands; 

And dignity that comes from honoring truth, 

To crown its bondman as the student’s master. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 

TEACHERS WITH SNAP 

When teachers have no snap, they seldom teach 
their pupils how to snatch; and half the thoughts, as 
well as things, we need in life are got by snatching. 

On Detective Duty , v. 

TEACHING, WHEN FALSE 
Ah, strange how much would not be thought 
Were it not taught! A plague on their presumption 
Who first began to teach, and teach religion! 

As if, forsooth, the heaven would be all dark 
Without our great lights of the temple here 
To thrust their smoking torches toward it ! 

The Aztec God , hi. 

TEAM-WORK IN LIFE-WORK 

.... All our firms must have their secrets; and 
anyone who starts to play with others — he must 
support the team. 

.... Why play with others? 

.... The very question I have asked. The man 
who sells himself to harness in a team, be friend 
or foe the one who tempts him to it, leaves the 
one place where he may meet with God and starts 
in paths where he may meet the devil. 

The Two Paths , iv. 

TEARS 

The gem-like tears, pursed in his wrinkled cheeks, 

Fell like some rich exchange of value due 

Proved wealth of worth within the soul now gone. 

A Life in Song: Prelude . 


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Then soon the froth that foam’d o’er reason’s cup 
Dissolv’d in timid tears, flow’d down the side. 

Idem , Daring , lxviii. 

TEAS AND MEN 

When asked to ladies’ teas, some men dress up before 
they go. These think the thing a nuisance before they 
start; and some do not dress up: — they know that it’s 
a nuisance when they get there. 

Tuition for her Intuition , hi. 

TEETH, USED IN TALKING, AS WELL AS EATING 
Our teeth are white keys of an instrument on which 
the spirit plays — to sound the music of the speaking 
voice. ’Tis better when they must move somehow, to 
keep them at the spirit’s work. 

The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 

TEMPERAMENT, AS A SOURCE OF LIKES 
What one likes or dislikes .... depends at times, 
less on another’s tendencies than on one’s own tem- 
perament. Where Society Leads , I. 

TEMPERAMENTS AS INFLUENCED BY SPIRIT 

His words and ways have seemed so void of grace, 
To say not grit! 

.... In temperaments like his 

The form is but the signal of the spirit. 

We never judge a flag by gawky flops 
Against a wind-forsaken pole ; but by 
Its flying when it feels the breath of heaven. 

Dante , i. f I. 

TEMPERAMENTS VS. TENDENCIES 
.... It is not irrational — is it? — to follow one’s 
own tastes? 

.... Yes, when they prompt one to forget other 
people’s traits. Temperament appeals to us through 
the body, tendencies through the mind. A rational 
being ought first to heed the latter. 

Where Society Leads , I. 

TEMPTATION AND TRAINING (see PROHIBITION) 
.... No one can keep a man from being tempted 
till he has rid him of his human nature, and ills you 
never can eradicate you ought to try to regulate. If 
not, take one thing from a man, he finds another; — 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


389 


for beer finds brandy, and for alcohol finds opium. 
True reform must aim to make the saints you seem to 
breed not mere weak sneaks. 

.... An old plea, yes ! 

.... It is — as old as Eden with trees that gave 
men knowledge of the evil as well as of the good; — 
with grains and fruits in which a man could find both 
food and poison. 

.... You wouldn’t keep the poison from his lips? 

.... Would rather make him keep his lips from 
it. 

.... Could do it? 

.... Not, perhaps, with every man. All training 
fails with some — is very hard to keep the devil from 
getting his full quota. But this should not prevent 
our trust in training; or in the mind we train. Few 
men are fools, and we shall find them fewest when we 
treat them not like unthinking brutes which they are 
not, but like true men who can be reached by reasons. 
When not reached thus — it may seem harsh to say it ; 
yet if this life be meant for discipline, both fools and 
wise must have an equal chance — no man can fight 
the devil for another. Tuition for her Intuition , n. 

Who knows what men can be, 
Till pierced where tenderest? It was the fleet 
Achilles could be wounded in the heel; 

And some have heads, and some have hearts to hurt. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 

TEMPTED 

The saved think less that they themselves were good 
Than that they were not tempted overmuch. 

The First Fascination. 

You alone . . . 

When tempted, have not let them drain your veins 

Of healthful soul-strength, to inject therein, 

In place of it, their foul sense-fevering virus. 

The Aztec God , iv., 1. 

TEMPTER MAY BE AN ANGEL 

Oh, do not think the tempter, when he comes, 

Proclaims his presence through acknowledged ill! 

His most seducing tones may leave the lips 


39 <> 


A POETS CABINET 


Of friends, or those who best may pose as friends ; 
His direst pitfall-paths mount up, nor hint 
What crumbling crags their garden glories wreathe. 
You deem that, at the crisis of his life, 

It was a devil Jacob wrestled with? — 

Nay, nay; Hosea’s term for him was angel. 

West Mountain . 
TENDENCIES, AVOIDING 

Things may tend where you and I needn’t attend 
them. The Snob and the Sewing Girl , iv. 

themselves {see egotist and self-conceit) 

The men who scan us, as a class, 

Turn always toward themselves, alas, 

Their magnifier’s largest glass; 

And small and far seem all who pass. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , ill. 
THEORIES {see IMAGINATION, PHILOSOPHY and 

practical) 

And what are theories worth, except so far 
As each can make men better than they are? 

Idem , Seeking , Liv. 
THIEVES COWARDLY 

A man who fights with thieves has justice to fight 
beside him. They show their backs to the one and 
they dare not face the other. The Ranch Girl , 11. 

THINKING AS RELATED TO ACTING 
More is always brew’d in error than befogs the thinking 
mind. 

That which moves the springs of action flows to action 
like in kind. A Life in Song: Watching, ill. 
THINKING BEINGS, TREATING PEOPLE LIKE 

And he will find before he dies 
That men accept one’s estimate of them. 

If he esteem them thinkers, give them thought, 
They turn to him like thinking beings ; but 
If he esteem them brutes, and give them force, 
They turn upon him like a brute. 

Columbus , HI., 2. 

THINKING, PREVENTING OTHERS FROM 
.... You seem to have a chronic objection to a 
woman’s thinking a little for herself. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


39i 


.... No; I merely object to her thinking entirely 
for others. Really, you should be more cautious. 
Young people ought not to get into their heads the 
idea that everybody can be managed. 

.... Why not? 

.... Mainly because it’s not true. You convey a 
false impression. It is about as easy to blow a feather 
down a boy’s throat when he himself keeps blowing as 
to get a thought into his mind when he himself keeps 
thinking. 

.... Yes; except when he stops to breathe! 

.... And then you can enter in, I suppose, and 
take possession. Do you remember what the Bible 
calls those that take possession of other people’s minds. 
It calls them devils. 

.... Oh, the Bible! 

.... Wise old book, nevertheless! The truth is 
that when we try to influence others irrespective of 
their own thinking, we very soon begin to lose respect 
for their thinking, and, not only so, but for our own 
thinking, and for any kind of thinking. As soon as a 
man does that, he begins to disregard thought and to 
say and do what misrepresents it; in other words, to 
deceive. Where Society Leads , 1. 

THINKING MEN, THEIR INFLUENCE 
One thinking follower might make men believe 
Your other followers were controlled by thought. 

Dante , 1., 2. 

THINKING OF OTHERS’ NEEDS 

A man can do a deal of things through thinking how 
much some one needs them. 

The Little Twin Tramps , 11. 

THINKING OUT LOUD 

A mind that thinks out loud works like a gun dis- 
charged before it has been fully loaded. It harms 
itself and does not help its owner. 

The Two Paths , 11. 

THINKING THE MOST IMPORTANT OF POSSIBILITIES 

.... What’s the use of having a fortune if you’re 
obliged to live like a farmer? 

.... The farmer may have as much to think 


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about as if he were always thinking of a fortune; and 
what one thinks makes up the most of what one needs 
in life. What Money Can't Buy , I. 

thought {see fancy and imagination) 

All men’s wisdom flows from each man’s thought ; 

And every page of progress but records 

The impress of this thought express’d in deeds. 

A Life in Song: Note iv. 

Ah, thought was crystallized when came the world! 

Idem, Seeking , XIX. 

Oh, not the outward things that may incite 
Give the true measure of the inward aim ! 

Our minds are deeper than our deeds proclaim ; 
And only thought can make them move aright. 

Broadening One s Outlook . 
All things created can for thought procure 
No more than one’s creative thoughts conjure. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , x. 

THOUGHT, AS INFLUENCED BY FORCE {see FORCE) 

When you come to deal with thought, 

The only influence force can have upon it 
Is to suppress but leave it still possessed. 

If error be in mind, it seems far better 
To let it out, and so be rid of it. 

The Aztec God , hi. 

THOUGHT, ENTANGLED 

Ah, why should fate 

Leave thought entangled like an eagle here 
Whose wings are bound, and feet can only crawl 
So slowly, and, when one so longs to fly, 

So painfully? Berlin Mountain. 

THOUGHT, HE WHO OCCASIONS 
He whose words can wake the earth to thought 
Has heaven’s own warrant that he should be heard. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 

THOUGHT, INTERFERING WITH ANOTHER’S 
Nothing in the world is quite so practically divine 
as mind; nothing so practically sacred as thought. 
You and I have no right to interfere with another’s 
thought, in order to prevent a truthful expression of it. 

Where Society Leads , 11. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


393 


THOUGHT UNCHECKED 

And thought uncheck’d, — it oft more danger fronts 
Than does the uncheck’d steed, whose frenzied flight 
Defies the rein, and, dashing down a road 
Straight deathward, trails his luckless driver on, 
Whirl’d powerless to prevent all as a babe. 

Haydn , xxix. 

THOUGHT VS. PERSONAL AFFECTION 
Be on your guard and think. 

And think? — 

I need that caution? — when this beaker all 
Is brimming to its overflow? — And think? — 

When all my thoughts are radiant with his form 
Like surging sea- waves glancing back the sun? 

Columbus , I., 2. 

THOUGHT, WHEN OPPOSED 

Our thought, like light, 

Opposed, will vaunt itself; and brightest play, 
Glanced off from things it does not penetrate. 

Ideals Made Real, L. 

THOUGHT, WAIVING ONE’S OWN 

No man has the right to waive his own thought for 
the thoughts of others, except so far as these become 
his own. Then, like night travelers, led to lighted halls, 
and sometimes to a dawn the sunrise brings, he can 
extinguish his own petty lantern. The Two Paths , iv. 

THRONE 

A soul that summons all that does one’s best 
To do still better, sits upon a throne 
Than which none higher is conceivable. 

Columbus , I., 2. 

THUNDER 

All our lives, we start and wonder, 

In this under world, what blunder 
Woke in heaven the voice of thunder. 

Yet it peals; and oh, how sadly, 

Like the storms that gather madly 
Over days that dawn so gladly, 

Burst on heavenliest harmonies 
Notes from where no music is! 

A Life in Song: Doubting, xxiv. 


394 


A POET'S CABINET 


THUNDER STORM (see STORM) 

The night 

Already shook beneath the threatening tread 
That brought, anon, a storm. Oh, fearful sight, — 

That black car of the thunderer overhead! 

Those fierce bolts flashing down their track of red, 
And crashing on amid the shatter’d sleet! 

And one broad elm, like Caesar, stabb’d and dead, 
Flung up its robes and tumbled at his feet, 

While hoarse winds howl’d about, and made his woe 
complete. A Life in Song: Daring , lxxv. 

TIES 

All ties are right that make true life more bright. 

Cecil the Seer, n., 2 . 
TIME AND VITAL FORCE 

To eyes 

That scan eternity, time cannot be 

The measure gauging vital force; nay, nay: 

Then heavenly lightning were a weaker thing 
Than earthly smoke. Haydn , I. 

TIME, ITS WORTH 

The worth of time is measured like a gem’s, 

Not by its bulk but by its brilliancy. 

The Aztec God , 11. 

TIME-SERVER 

And yet he played no mere time-server’s part, 

Nor waived old truth and friendship for the new. 
Who judged he waived them would misjudge a heart 
No more susceptive to them both, than true. 

But traits like these, because not always blended, 

Oft made his nature doubted and reviled; 

Some deem’d them craft, and such their friendship 
ended ; 

Some deem’d them whims, and such would chide 
him like a child. A Life in Song: Serving , iv. 
Shall one, when the world 

Asserts control, 

Forget the soul? 

With every flag of a high cause furl’d 
Give up his fight for virtue and truth, 

And become a man of the world, forsooth? — 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


395 


Ay, ay, a coward, who cringed and bow’d, 

And has grown content to court the crowd? — 

A mountebank who, in storm or calm, 

Turns up or down his willing palm 

For a pittance from snobs that he thinks to please 

With a sneer for those and a smile for these? 

Love and Life , xxxvn. 

TIMES, GOOD 

How much is time here worth, if in it all 
We live but slaves, and never know of good times? 
The man who squeezes these all out our life — 
Wrings our last sweat-drop out to serve himself, — 
He has 

.... A vampire’s care for us. 

Columbus , hi., 2. 

TIP-TOP OF SOCIETY 

They are at the top, the very tip-top, of society. 
.... Should think so! — like the tip-top house 
upon Mount Washington. You know ’tis it because, 
just when you see it, you feel like freezing. 

The Little Twin Tramps, II. 

TITLE, NOT NEEDED IN AMERICA 

.... You have no title. 

.... People of sense know enough to prefer a gold 
cup without a handle to a pewter cup with a handle. 
.... What an egotistical boy you are? 

.... Am I? 

.... No; but you are very American. 

Where Society Leads , I. 

TOGETHER 

Will never a Magellan sail around 
This grander globe of truth, till he have found 
How paths that part most widely sometimes tend 
To bring two souls together in the end? 

A Life in Song: Seeking , lv. 
toil ( see labor and work) 

No place in life but fills a need. 

Who tills the soil, he starts the seed; 

And on his kind of toil below 
Depends the kind of fruits that grow. 

After the Lynching . 


396 


A POETS CABINET 


tomb (. see monument) 

Tread softly. Nothing mortal we revere 
Within the dwelling that we stand before. 

No form will come to meet us from the door. 

Only the spirit of the man is near. 

Only to spirit do men ever rear 

These shafts like arms uplifted to implore 

The world to honor those we see no more, 

But whose white souls the white tomb symbols here. 
Ah, what could ever lead earth’s dull throngs on 
To those bright goals, concealed from mortal view 
In future glory for which good men plan, 

Except some spirit heaven had shone upon? 

Our awe for genius is a worship due 

To that which comes from God and not from man. 

The Grave of Genius. 
TONES, MERRY (. see VOICE) 

Whose merry tones 

Would ring out, if our thoughts turn’d far from her. 
Like bells that homeward lure the wind-blown bees, 
And bring our flighty fancies back again. 

Haydn , iv. 

TONGUE, THE, AND ITS POETIC INFLUENCE ( see 

poetry) 

. . . . The poet’s tool is his poetic tongue. 

. . . . ’T is not the tongue that makes the bell ring 
sweet ; 

It is the metal of the bell itself. Dante , I., I. 

TRACK, RIGHT, FOR THOUGHT 

You place thought on the right track once, you find 
What moves it on is not what moves it off. 

They differ. Columbus , I., I. 

TRADE 

E’en trade is made by winds from heaven above 
To join men in the bonds of trust and love. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xli. 
But let us hope, while knowledge still advances, 

That men will learn to trust in manhood more; 

As trade that once crept on with lifted lances 

Has learn’d, at last, unarm’d to feed each hungry 
shore. Idem t Serving , lxxx. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


39 7 


TRADES, JUDGING MEN BY 

My mood, 

As gloom would gather round again, would grieve 
To think, in sorting souls, fate bungled so, 

And let our traits be judged of by our trades, — 
The dusty imprint of the things we touch. 

'‘As well,” cried I, “to judge of winds of heaven, 
By bogs they brush, or fogs they bear away! 

We two that so could trust each other’s hearts, 
Why should we not join hearts, and leave to them 
The hands?” Ideals Made Real , lxii. 

TRAGEDY 

In every life, 

The first and final acts are tragedy. 

The Aztec God , I. 

TRAINING 

Do not think that men 
Can ever change our nature by their training. 
Nay, clip, abuse, deform it as you may, 

The weakest bush will bear its own flower still, 
And every heart the love life made it for. 

The Aztec God , in. 

TRAINING AND WORKING 

You can’t train even a vine, unless it’s working 
all the time itself. 

The Little Twin Tramps , ill., 2. 
TRAINING OF THE WORLD (see WORLD, SOUL and 
spirit) 

Oh, he has been train’d by the world and the school 
To curb his character in by rule 
Till the rule of his life is a lie. 

A man like that would spurn to find 
In God’s designs the quest of his mind. 

He crams and drams for an appetite 
That nothing on earth can sate or excite. 

His words are as dry as the words of a book, — 

Your sentence is ready, wherever you look. 

His views — he never saw any thing strange: 

If he did, some fellow might question his range. 

And all of profit he tests by pelf, 

And all of manhood measures by self, 


398 


A POETS CABINET 


Forgets that God rules the world he is at, 

And stars himself as its autocrat. 

Of Such Is the Kingdom. 

TRANSMIGRATION 

.... Who has traced for you 

The history of spirits? If they came 
From God, as matter came, why came they not 
With matter? 

. . . . What? — Through beasts and birds, you mean? 
. . . . Why not? — Why should not these have endless 
life? 

Why, if they have it, should their course be checked 
Ere they attain the highest? — and, if not, 

Why should their essence not move up through man? 
. ... Is man the son of beasts? 

. . . . In flesh why not? — 

But may be born of flesh and of the Spirit. 

Devoid of spirit, all the body’s nerves 
Are lifeless as the wires, when rent apart, 

Which once were thrilling with electric force. 

But ah! that force, though flown to air, comes back 
To give new life wherever new forms fit it. 

So, while the whole creation of the flesh, 

In groans and travails of successive births, 

Prepares each new formation for its need, 

Why should not psychic force, the breath of Him 
In whom all live and move and have their being, 

With rhythm mightier than the pulse of lungs, 

Or day and night, or autumn and the spring, 

Pass up through all the lower ranks of life, 

Through birth and on through death, from air to 
breath, 

From breath to air, till, last, it reaches man; 

And, taught the lesson there of human hands 
Which master matter, and of each man make 
A fellow worker in creation’s work, 

And, taught the lesson of the human voice, 

Which for each new conception frames a word 
To phase and phrase it, and of each man makes 
A fellow-thinker in creation’s thought, — 

Why should not this force, moulded by the hand 
And head, attain in man its final end, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


399 


And dowered with will and reason, freed at death 
From its material framework, hold its mould, 

And reach the last result of all that is, 

Where that which served the serpent is the son, — 

A spirit in the image of the Father? 

Cecil the Seer , n., 2. 

TRAP 

I am practicing, you see — 

On criminals. — That man there set a trap. 

But it takes two to make a trap work. He, 

He was a genius, this man, played both r61es, 

He set it and was caught in it. 

Columbus, hi., 1. 

TRAP, SKIRTED 

You skirted trap, you think all men will tumble 
when you try to trip them? The Two Paths , 1. 

TREACHERY 

They think that these will seem our friends; 

And make an opening through which all can enter. 
What keener point could treachery find to edge 
Its wedge of enmity, than tried old friendship? 

Columbus , v., 1. 

TREADMILL 

The feet that tread the treadmill no more bind 
The spirit to their petty task, than do 
Our brains bind thought whose words, by working 
through, 

Not in, this mortal framework, lead their kind. 

Obscurity . 

TREASURE, A NATION^ 

If I be queen, let me be queen 
Of Spain’s rich spirit as of Spain’s rich soil. 

I will — there is a treasure. — What to Spain 
Are her most precious treasures, that star most 
The crown that they surround with living light? 

Mere jewels, think you? — Nay, not these, but men. 
And if I give the one to gain the other, who 
Could strike a better bargain? Ay, I will — 

Columbus , 11., 3. 

TREASURE, HIDDEN BENEATH APPEARANCES 
Earth is a field where hidden treasure lies. 


400 


A POET'S CABINET 


All search for it ; their searching wakes their thoughts, 
And draws out their desires, and aims their acts. 

At last, they look and live for that alone 
Which lures beneath appearances. Few find it. 

The few that do, find that which makes the world 
Worth living in, and worth yon circling dome, 

The crown God gives it, jeweled all with stars. 

Cecil the Seer , hi. , i . 

TREES, ON MOUNTAIN TOPS 
I reached that great right angle where 
All farms and all things fertile lie below, 

And only barren slopes of sterile rock 
And trees that nature struggles to disown 
Await the climber who would still move on. 

West Mountain. 


TRESSES 

Then, as nearer she drew, her face 
Clear’d from a shade of tresses, 

Fair as a dawn that breaks apace 
Out of a cloud’s recesses. 

A Life in Song: Loving t n. 

TROUBLE, AS AFFECTING STRONG CHARACTER ( see 
affliction and BEREAVEMENT) 

Nothing that can come from the world, no matter 
how much it may irritate or hurt, can really injure or 
weaken a strong character. It acts like sand when it 
scratches a gem, giving it a finer polish. 

# Where Society Leads , hi. 

TROUBLE, TREATED LIGHTLY AND SERIOUSLY 
At times, a trouble like this when coming between 
old friends, if treated as of serious intent, may, like 
seed, take root and grow enormously; but treated 
lightly, as a joke, be quickly brushed aside like seed 
dropped accidentally. The Ranch Girl , iv. 

TROUBLE DUE TO SELF {see WORRY) 

In man as in nature, the outward jar 
Less brings our trouble than what we are. 

The wind may but tickle the grass or the tree 
That lashes to fury the wave of the sea. 

The Last Home Gathering. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


401 


TRUE 

In all tales true to life 
Men read a lesson less from man than God. 

A Life in Song: Finale. 

TRUE, AND A TRUE SOUL 

. . . These words recall an ancient eastern dream; 
And, in one’s waking hours, can it be true? 

.... Think you a true soul ever served a thought 
Not souled in truth, whatever were its form? 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2. 
TRUE TO HUMAN NATURE 
All men, to their own best natures true, 

Learn soon to let truth rule their fellows too. 

So here the chains that on the bondmen clank 
Are loosed, and slaves may reach the noblest rank; 
And every field grows richer for the toil 
Of yeomen working well their own-held soil. 

Their very king, at last, has come to plan 
The common welfare like a common man. 

A Life in Song: Seeking , xli. 
trust ( see faith) 

Ah no, for shade no more than light will fall 
On souls that still in God and man can trust. 

To him who still has faith in generous action 
Full many a thankful eye will love confess; _ 

And many a hope that thrills life’s nobler faction 
On many a lip assure his life of sure success. 

Idem , Serving , lxxxvi. 

In God we trust by trusting all 
In whom His traits are shown. 

God bless America . 

truth ( see force and words of truth) 

. . . * I give them truth. 

.... Truth is for fools. 

.... I give it to them. 

.... Humph! it comes from fools. 

.... Yes, if they think men want it. I do not. 
They merely need it. Cecil the Seer , 1. 

Our God is great. I deem Him great enough 
His truth to save without subverting ours. 

True sovereignty has truth : ’t is not a sham 

36 


402 


A POETS CABINET 


That holds high rank because we courteous men, 
Considerate men, allow it seeming rank. 

Who lies to save the truth, distrusts the truth, 
Disowns the soul, and does despite to God. 

Who strives to save his life thus, loses it, 

In evil trusting and the Evil One, — 

Salvation through the Devil, not through Christ ! 

Haydn , xxvn. 

With truth, the longer kept, the longer thought of ; 
And thinking feeds conviction. Columbus , I., 3. 

.... I never saw a girl like you before. 

.... Am I so queer? I never thought I was. 
Some girls, you know, are kind, too kind to say what 
others never want to have them say. 

.... And what is that? 

.... My mother calls it truth. 

.... Of all the innocents! You know, my girl, 
you’re scarcely fitted for a place like this. 

.... Why not? 

.... You are so pretty, and so good. Do you 
believe in love at first sight? 

.... What is that? 

. . . .The first time you see a fellow you know 
that, somehow, he was made for you. 

.... Know somehow — how? 

.... Because he looks — looks nice. 

.... Oh, there are many people that look nice ! 
.... He looks particularly so. He makes you 
thrill. 

.... Why should I be afraid of him, when he is 
nice? 

.... I didn’t mean just that. 

.... You looked at me, I thought, as if you did. 
.... How looked at you? 

.... Oh, well, I hardly know. I never met a man 
like you before. 

.... You never met a man who loved you then. 
.... Do men like you love all the girls they see? 
.... No — only you. 

; . . . What do you know about me? The only 
thing that I can think of is that I — I didn’t want to 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


403 


drink; but you — You seem to like this drinking very 
much. How can I think that you belong to me? 
{Then, as he bends over her.) Please, please, sir, point 
your breath the other way. 

. . . .You are so sweet. 

.... Yes, I would like to keep so. 

On Detective Duty , xi. 
TRUTH AND LOVE {see LOVE) 

Come to the truth, and come as you may, 

All of love is begun. 

Whether you feel or think your way, 

Love and the truth are one. 

Love is the warmth, and truth the ray; 

Truth is the light, and love the day; 

Come to either, you wend your way 
Under the lasting sun. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxviii. 
And truth the sovereign is, not speech, nor sect. 
Who love God’s truth love God. 

Idem, Seeking , xlvii. 

TRUTH, DEPENDENT ON VIEW-POINTS {see CURRENT) 
.... Truth can never change. 

.... We can. 

. . . . And change it? 

.... Change 

Its bearings for us. Truth is of the heaven: 

The mind regarding it is of the earth. 

The one is infinite, the other finite: 

The one expressed in light itself, the other 
In forms that but reflect light ; and the truth, 

Made such but by reflection, cannot flash 
An equal ray to every view-point. Columbus, 11., 2. 
TRUTH, GROWING OF ITSELF 

There is too much life 
In truth of any sort, when sown, to doubt 
Its growing. I have made a good beginning. 

.... A very small one. 

. . . . So a seed is too, 

Whose growth is great. When one awaits the dawn. 

A flush is better than a flash, which oft 

But bodes a rush-light. Columbus , I., 3. 


404 


A POETS CABINET 


TRUTH, ITS BREATH 

Truth far more includes 
Than most men deem who would deem all things theirs. 

Ideals Made Real , xxxvii. 

TRUTH LIVING THROUGH CONCEALMENT 

Fact is, the truth in the world, like a fox on a farm, 
has been forced to hide in order to live; so finding it 
always involves finding out what has been kept in. 

The Ranch Girl , I. 

TRUTH, PEDDLING 

Whatever be his energy, no man can make a fortune 
peddling truth. The T wo Paths , ill. 

TRUTH, RULING AND LEADING 
Where truth moved on, tho’ few might know it, 
To rule by the meek and to lead by the poet. 

Love and Life, lvii. 
TRUTH, SEARCH FOR 

Yes, truth there is — I long have thought — 

One finds, when he has merely sought. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxxvi. 
No search for the truth with a willing mind 
Is a search for what one is willing to find, 

But a search for the willing of all mankind. 

Who seek but this, though many may leave them 
And loss of all in the home may grieve them, 

At last may slowly learn to trace 
Fair traits of the spirit in each new face. 

Love and Life, xlix. 

TRUTH SEEKING 

The truth would seem too cheap, if brought 
To souls that ne’er for it had sought. 

A Life in Song: Doubting, xxxi. 

TRUTH, THE WINE OF MIND 
It may be late in life for us to get what makes the 
body young, but not so of the mind. When worn by 
work, no wine should bring it better cheer than truth. 

On Detective Duty, I. 
TRUTH TO MANHOOD 
Whatever the mission of life may be, 

Let love keep true, and let thought keep free.. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


405 


And never, whatever may cause the plan, 

Enlarge the calling to lessen the man. 

The cut of a coat, 

Cant chatter’d by rote, 

A priestly or princely state remote 
From the ties that bind 
A man to mankind, 

Are a clog and a curse to spirit and mind; 

For God, who made us, made only a man, 

No arms of a snob, no shield of a clan. 

Far better a friend that is friendly to God, 

Than a sycophant kissing a ribbon or rod. 

Whatever the Mission of Life may he. 
truth to self (see frank and frankness) 

Have your say, 

Whether you blame or applaud, 

I the behest of my soul obey, 

Just as it came from God. 

Musician and Moralizer. 
truth to spirit 

But why should he so suffer! — I half think 
In truth to spirit there is that which makes 
All earth its enemy. 

.... Yet conquers it. 

Columbus , 1., 3. 

TRUTH VS. COURTESY 

I fear 

To court with too much courtesy the truth 
That but to be truth bids us oft be curt — 

Dante , 11., 1. 

TWILIGHT 

Where evening shadows lie reclined at close of day, 
All the world grows more attractive, veil’d in twi- 
light’s guise of gray; 

For, in dim relief, its outlines woo our wonder and 
surmise. A Life in Song: Dreaming , 11. 

TYRANNY, ITS OWN PERPETUATOR 

We men are trained in government 
As well as manners. And the curse of force 
Is that its own mean methods keep alive 
Its first excuse for being. Tyranny 


406 


A POETS CABINET 


May make of chaos order; but, when throned, 
Knows not a subject that is not a slave. 

Would one of those o’er whom my brother ruled, 
Have bent the knee to an authority 
Not ermined in the old familiar guise 
Of arbitrariness? Columbus , V., 2. 

TYRANT 

0 ye masters and oppressors, ye who flout what poets do, 

Keen ye are, to treat as dreams the things these 
dreamers deem are true. 

Dreams they are, forsooth, for men, when wide awake 
to gains of earth, 

Selfish here and there suspicious, all assail each other’s 
worth. 

Each a tyrant where he dare be, crowds his neighbor 
from his path, 

Whining then for laws to limit and restrain his neigh- 
bor’s wrath, 

Whining till he find a tyrant, who with acts that goad 
and bind, 

Fitly bodies forth the tyrant whom he serves in his 
own mind. A Life in Song: Watching , x. 

No tyrant ever triumphed yet 
But first came cowards cringing to be trod on. 

Dante , hi ., 2. 

UNCONSCIENTIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS 
When a man becomes unconscientious, the best 

thing you can do for him — eh? — is to make him un- 
conscious? Where Society Leads , 1 . 

UNDERSTAND 

At times, us men who think we understand him 
He welcomes but like strangers pushing in 
The front door of one’s house before they knock. 

Dante , 1., 2. 

understood {see misunderstood) 

You think I craved their cheering? No, not that. 

I only want the best I have within 
To be made better and believed, and then 
Received by those about me. Idem. 

UNDRESS OF MEN WHEN WITH WOMEN 
A house is one thing, and a camp another. In one, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


407 


men lay aside their working guise; but in the other 
they must keep it on. Not strange it shocks a shy 
man’s modesty to meet with ladies in what custom 
calls undress! He likes to seem to hold them dear; 
not treat them as if he were cheapening them. 

Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 

UNEXPECTED, AN ELEMENT OF ENJOYMENT 

There is nothing a circus cheers more than a man 
who, in riding a horse, appears to be thrown, and is 
not. The Ranch Girl , 1. 

UNIFORMS OF MILITIA 

.... Why is it that militiamen enlist? 

.... To wear their uniforms? 

.... Just for the looks. 

.... They fight for that? 

.... Fight well, because of it. It makes them 
formidable. Dressed alike, they look like one big 
creature; if they wore no uniforms would look like 
many small ones. Tuition for her Intuition , in. 

UNSOPHISTICATED GIRLS 

Girls unsophisticated are like bees : 

They buzz for all, and yet sip all their sweets 

From the first flowery lips that open to them. 

Haydn , xix. 

UPSHOT 

But now that the hour drew near in which to find 
out what would be the result of it, there was present 
to his consciousness a vague and sickening feeling, 
similar to what a boy has when, for the first time, he 
has ended loading up a gun, and is about to fire it off. 
He is not entirely certain whether the gun will hit its 
aim, kick back at himself, or end in a general explosion ; 
though, whatever is to be the upshot, he has braced 
himself for the attempt, and is relieved to think that 
the time has come to give the experiment vent. 

Modern Fishers of Men , 1. 

USE 

We live our lives for use; if men misuse us, 

Far better so than that we lose all use! 

The Aztec God , v. 


408 


A POETS CABINET 


UTILITY 

Think not that every leaf that sprouts in spring 
Must be a stem straight-pointed toward a flower; 
That every bud must bring a blossom-nest 
In which to hatch and home a future fruit. 

Full many a leaf can only catch the shower 
And quench the dry limb’s thirst; full many a bud 
Grow bright alone as might a short-lived spark 
Aglow to show some source of kindled fragrance. 

Berlin Mountain. 

VANITY AND DECEIT 

Ah, nothing like a she-hand, skill’d in needles, 

To prick men’s vanity, and gown the hurt 
In vain disguises 1 Columbus , iv., I. 

verse ( see poems, poet and poetry) 

Where heedless ears 
Are disenchanted oft of all distaste 
By words men chant in verse whose music seems 
To pulse and pant like living blood and breath, 

Or leave the nervy lines like breezes blown 
From silence into song-land, as they cross 
^Folian chords ; — who in a world like this 
Would not wish all the current of his thought 
To flow to speech amid these waves of rhythm? 
More swiftly and more surely thus, perchance, 

The truth that wells from him may clear the space 
Between his own and other souls, and swell 
The stream of truth which flows from each for all. 

A Life in Song: Prelude . 

VERSE AND LABOR 

All the measures of your verse may show 
How sweet can be the echoes waked anon 
By labor’s ringing anvil. 

Ideals Made Real , liii. 
vice ( see crimes and sin) 

At first, I shrank from life so mean; 

And oft would blush when I had seen 
How man could boast, yet be unclean; 

But, oh, I feel, as weeks wear on, 

Vice, oft unveil’d, appears not wan, 

And stings of sin wear blunt anon: 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 409 

One learns to know with little fear 
How seldom love and life appear 
Full wedded in this lower sphere. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , x. 

VICE, WEAKENING ONE’S DEFENSES 
.... The way to get the better of a man is to 
attack him at his worst. 

.... Suppose you fail to find his worst? What 
happens then? You meet a man who drinks, and you 
can drug him; or gambles, you can fool him as your 
dupe; or sports with women, gown them as decoys; 
but if he have no vices, as a rule, he wears a mail whose 
every joint is covered. On Detective Duty , ill. 

VICES, INFLUENCE OF MEN’S AND WOMEN’S 
Men’s vices, as we know, lead men astray; but, fuse 
them with a woman’s natural charms, and you in- 
crease their power to tempt ten-fold. A woman doing 
just the thing that man does can play the devil in a 
sense impossible for him. 

Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 

VICTORY 

I know how deep and dark the vale 
Where some, fair fortune’s heights to scale, 
Equipp’d with sword and shield and mail, 

Have found the power to wound the wrong, 

And dash aside its lances long, 

And press between its yielding throng; 

Till all men wonder’d at the fight 
Whose brunts had made their mail so bright 
That older glory shunn’d its light. 

Anon, triumphant o’er the wrong, 

And thron’d above earth’s cheering throng, 

As chosen chiefs of all the strong, 

Behold, they stand where honor dwells, 

And earth with pride their story tells, 

Nor envy evermore dispels 

Their joy that swells at victory’s bells. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xvi. 

VIEWS DIVINE 

The views divine, with which such souls are bless’d, 
As, always looking up, forget to earn 


4io 


A POETS CABINET 


Earth’s praise, because of joy in heaven’s to which 
they turn. A Life in Song: Daring , xxxvn. 

VILEST 

There are times when the vilest of men disguises 
His foulness in forms that love most prizes; 

But alas! his gracious and graceful gait 
The vilest of men takes on too late. 

It never appears like a natural trait. 

Nor long, I deem, will his mien cajole 
Those finding the whole 

Of the sweet in his coating and not in the soul. 
Who tastes that dainty, alas, but gnashes 
At apples of Sodom ! — he bites into ashes. 

As well pursue a will-o’ wisp’s flare! — 

His fire of devotion is all in the air. 

As well touch a carcass! — those pulsings avow’d 
Are worms that go crawling round under a shroud. 
No soul is within him our soul to accost. 

His might, not right, of repentance is lost. 

The glut of the senses, like vultures above 
A life that is dead, leaves nothing to love. 

Love and Life t liv. 
VILENESS OCCASIONING GOODNESS 
Do you know that goodness is a growth that springs 
from seed, and seed grows finest sometimes from a 
soil when at its vilest? The Two Paths , hi. 

Nay, tho’ my transient look went wrong, my feet, 
Have followed righteousness. Ah, sire, you know 
Some think the only harvests heaven can find, 
Unfold from germs dropped near enough to hell 
To fear its heat and grow away from it. 

The Aztec God , hi. 
VILLAIN, AS COMPANION 
Such a villain, that his daintiest act 
Of kindness is a counterfeited coin 
With which he chaffers and intends to cheat! 

If I were drowning, I would spurn to grasp 
His hand, if it would draw me near himself. 

Better to die at once, when washed and clean, 
Than catch contagion and live on defiled. 

Cecil the Seer , i. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 411 

VIRTUE, ONE 

This heart of mine were heavy were it not 
Made light and bright by eyes that can detect, 
Beneath all veils disguising what it is, 

Its one sole virtue. Columbus , 11., 1. 

VISIONARY 

A visionary man produces visions; 

And in the world that is, men want what is. 

Idem , 1., 3. 

voice {see tones) 

The aged soldier’s well kept, youthful voice, 

The ringing echo of a singing heart, 

Charm’d all, like chimings of the old church bells, 
Which, sweet in summer, yet still sweeter seem, 
When peal’d amid the winter’s wind-whirl’d snow. 

A Life in Song: Note 1 . 
No wealth and rank belong to me, 

But yet, where thought and word are free, 

The voice alone a power may be, 

And rule the world by singing. 

A Song on Singing. 
VOICE, QUALITY OF 

And such a voice, too, ugh, ugh! One would fancy 
her born and cradled out here on a ranch, and forever 
asleep on it, catching cold, and every night growing 
hoarser by snoring. The Ranch Girl , 111. 

VOICE, TREMOR IN 

That tremor in the voice 
That seems to make the soul’s pulse audible. 

A Life in Song: Note 111. 
VOICE VS. APPEARANCE 

Mere sheep 

Would not be driven by another sheep 
Though clothed in bear-skin, could they only hear 
His old familiar bleat. Columbus , 111., 2. 

VOTES, GETTING 

In getting votes, like getting fish at sea, no one can 
hope to know what fills the net, or leave out anything, 
however foul, ’till all the catch has been drawn in, not 
so? Tuition for her Intuition , 11. 


412 


A POETS CABINET 


VOTES, GIVEN FOR EXPECTED FAVORS 

When men give us votes, 
They lie in wait to have their gifts returned, — 

To wrest from us an undeserved reward, 

Or brand us ingrates whom all friends desert. 

Dante , n., 2. 

vow {see promise) 

The soul should conquer nature; but this means 
That spirits all should claim their rights, — be lords 
Of forms that spring from earth. But are they so 
When by a vow they swear to serve a form, 

And don the life and livery of a slave? 

Haydn , xli. 

VOYAGE OF LIFE {see LIVES) 

On the scenes my gaze I fix’d then. — In the first, there 
met my eye 

Figures of a youth, and angel pointing out the head- 
lands high 

Of a land of peerless grandeur past an ocean wide and 
lone. 

In the next, near harbors lured the youth to shores 
where wrecks were strown. 

Next, he sail’d o’er rough seas bravely; next, did drift 
becalm’d awhile; 

Next, flew on where fairest breezes blew toward many 
a flowery isle. 

Next, great clouds were sweeping toward him, and 
his frame was bent with fear ; 

But the last scene show’d a port with heaven-high 
mounts that he drew near. 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , xxxi. 

VOYAGER 

How far his views 

Reach’d round the world, tho’ ne’er a voyager! 

For one may see this life and stay at home. 

Between two walls imagination oft 

Finds truth that world- wide travellers never know; 

Nor does it always make men wise, I deem, 

That they have napp’d in Nice or roam’d in Rome. 

A Life in Song: Note vi. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


413 


WAGE VS. SHARE ( See SHARING PROFITS) 

This new reform 

That seeks to make the server and the served 
Walk hand in hand, while wage gives way to share, 
And, furthering all men to their furthest due, 

Thus lifts the low and lost. Ideals Made Real, lxvii. 
WAITING 

A seer should know that truth, like morn, comes on 
By slow degrees, enlightening every sight; 

And, tho’ he wakes the world it dawns upon, 

His faith should wait till souls can see the light. 

’T is he that waves his own torch in the night 
Who feels that he must force on men its glare ; 

And, though, ere dawn, this seems the one thing 
bright, 

If taken for the sun, it leads men where 
Their leader’s oil burns out, and they themselves 
despair. A Life in Song: Daring , lxxi. 

WALKING 

I have walk’d with her ; and my nerves have sway’d 
As if each were the chord of a harp she play’d, 

And every pulse were a note to greet 
The soft low beat of her firm young feet. 

Idem, Loving , xi. 

WAR 

Oh, what a whirlwind’s wave-lashed sea is war! 

Then hate breaks loose to over-flood the world, 
Hurling all love-built order upside down 
Till weal is drowned in darkness of the deep, 

And wreckage rides the crest. — They might have known 
They would be tricked. War’s tactics all are acts 
Of treachery — the one sole sphere where he 
Who does the worst thing does the best, here faith 
Falls crushed beneath the trampling foot of force; 
And fair means trip, trailed mireward after foul. 

The Aztec God, 1. 
When sounds of war awoke, 

And wide as earth a vision broke 
Of sword and gun in flash and smoke, 

And flags o’er freemen springing. 

A Song on Singing. 


414 


A POETS CABINET 


WAR FOR FREEDOM 

These clouds of war break like a thunder-clap 
Amid clear skies of summer; but will bring 
Our plant of freedom to a finer fruitage. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 

O ye who see but lust for wealth or rule 
Where love would end one more wrong’d people’s 
thrall, 

As your sires ended yours, how blind are ye! 

Who says there is no God is no more fool 
Than he who hears not God’s voice in each call 
To loose man’s bonds and let the oppress’d go free. 

Expansion. 

WARFARE ON EARTH PERPETUAL 
To men whose purposes, like ours, push on 
To work out high designs, all life on earth 
Is girt with warfare, where the light of heaven 
That brings us each new day’s enlightenment, 
Contends with darkness, and there is no peace. 
Our very bodies are but phantoms formed 
Of that same darkness that we must oppose, 

And we must fight, if nothing else, ourselves. 

Cecil the Seer , hi., 2. 

WEAKLING 

A weakling soon to die, 
Who, if train’d in-doors, might fail to make my friend- 
ship with the sky! 

A Life in Song: Dreaming , vi. 

WEAKNESS 

Your weakness is your wickedness. 

Haydn , xxxix. 

WEALTH, ARISTOCRACY OF 

.... Has she been trying to sit down on you again? 
.... Yes; and I never realized before how heavy 
a lot of money in one’s pocket can make a person. 

.... A chance for you to do missionary work, 
then ! Did yon try to give her an uplift ? 

.... Missionary work! I felt like a butterfly in 
a bog trying to teach a worm to use wings. The more 
you get the worm to wiggling the deeper down it 
sinks. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


415 


.... There’s one blessed thing about it — for her. 
She never thinks of you as the butterfly or of herself 
as the worm, but vice versa. 

What Money Can't Buy , III. 
WEAPON 

Wise men, when they fear a fight, 

Will never lend one weapon to a foe. 

Cecil the Seer , 1. 

WED 

Some women, once wed, 
Drop the smile from their face with the veil they have 
shed. Love and Life , xxxm. 

Men do not often wed their own ideals. 

.... I know it. I have thought it through; and yet, 
Without that, life can have some brightness left. 

Cecil the Seer , 111., 1. 
wedded {see marriage and matrimony) 

And one would be the shelter’d tree 
Whose roots resist the blast ; 

And one the fruitful vine would be 
That lives to clasp it fast. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xix. 

0 darling, can it be this frame 
Is mine in truth as well as name? 

My heart is trembling, love, to share, 

And make thy trembling hope its care. 

What is it brims these lips of thine? 

Is it a draft of wine divine? 

O surely never earthly gains 

Could thrill so sweetly through the veins. 

Come near me, love, for I would be 
Forever still more near to thee; 

And while our lips and arms entwine 
Let all I am or own be thine. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xlix. 

When birds at morn are singing, 

And wake me from my rest, 

All heaven above me ringing 
Seems echoed in my breast; 

Yet not to answer back the birds, 


416 


A POETS CABINET 


Nay, love, but thy warm touch and words, 
Which truly bring the heaven to me 
Because I wake to live with thee. 

At noontime, when my labor 

That toils from height to height 
Has distanced many a neighbor, 

And all my skies are bright; 

All, all seem nothing, till I find 
Myself within thine arms entwined, 

And thy dear lips assuring me 
That all I gain is gain’d for thee. 

When night falls dark and dreary, 

Or loss has check’d anon 
My powers that worn and weary 
Refuse to labor on, 

E’en then I ne’er can mourn the cost 
Of toilsome days and labor lost, 

While night and weariness to me 
Bring dreams that all are fill’d with thee. 

Idem , L. 

Twin lives have we, both rooted in one soil, 

And growing toward one hope for which we toil ; 
Twin lives have we, both branches of one vine, 

And all that threatens thy life threatens mine. 

A Life in Song: Loving , lii. 

You true Pygmalion, make a maid! — 

But all maids grow to us, when wedded once; 

For practical, they are, far more than men, 

And bow to powers that be. Though caught, like 
fish 

Through bait they crave not ere men tender it, 

They cleave to love once offer’d them; nor turn, 

Like male-friends, clinging — true as iron, forsooth — 
To each new stronger magnet! Were they thus, 

Our homes might hardly hold our rivals there. 

Ideals Made Real , lvi. 

WEDDED, INFIDELITY IN THE 
Soon, bird-like, flitting from homes unblest, 
Their singing is all outside of their nest. 

Love and Life , xxxm. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


4i7 


WEDDING-DAY 

O wedding-day, thou flower most rare 
Of all that burst from bulbs of night, 

Lift o’er my eyes thy petals fair, 

Nor shed for aye thy leaves of light, 

Nor let them e’er decay. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xlvii. 
WEDDING JOURNEY 

It often might turn out as well to take one’s wedding 
journey before, not after, the church has shut one out 
from hearing, till he or his mate are dead, any more 
of the wedding music. The Ranch Girl , 1. 

WEDGE, AS A SYMBOL OF INTERFERENCE 

.... Strange world this! One could know it 
whirled without the scientists — it jars life so! You 
draw your plan, you build, you put together two 
things that seem just fitted to each other; a third 
drops like a wedge between them — ugh! 

.... At times the wedge seems brought there by 
the builder. 

.... A wedge is part of all who push themselves 
successfully. 

.... Some think to reach his aims, half earth’s as 
well as heaven’s, a man should be in part, at least, a 
partner of the devil. The Two Paths , 11. 

WEEDS VS. ROSES 

If when we walk, we bring our weeds with us, 
We cannot hope our air will smell of roses. 

Dante , 1., 1. 

WEEST 

Then I saw a stranger marvel: — smaller than each 
mate so small, 

Floated near the weest wonder one could ever see at all. 
First it seem’d a passing snow-flake; then repaid my 
steadfast gaze 

With the outlines of a skiff there, fill’d with cheery, 
film-like fays; 

And up through the shifting atoms of the air that 
parted us 

Oozed in tiny tones a ditty, and the lines were worded 
thus : A Life in Song: Dreaming , xx. 


418 


A POETS CABINET 


WEST, THE MIDDLE 

He left the south, and wander’d through the west, 
Where, like some Eden’s garden form’d anew, 

The Mississippi’s plains reward man’s rest 
With boons that elsewhere to his toil are due. 
There sods are flower-beds, needing not a florist; 

There every field a vale where moisture flows; 

And every barren swamp, or cliff, or forest, 

A mere mirage in clouds where labor finds no foes. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxi. 
whim 

His brain seems like a bat’s at blazing noon 
That works but to work out some inward whim 
And aims at nothing. Dante , I., 2 . 

whims ( see deeds) 

Our wishes and ways are heirs of our whims, 

And our footsteps follow our eyes. 

Love and Life, xvii. 
We both stood round, scarce loath 
To note his own wild set inflating him 
With well-blown whims that swell’d his empty pride. 
Forsooth, the better bubble he could be, 

The better hope we two could have of what 
Should blow him from us. Ideals Made Real , 11. 
WHITTLED 

The problem wore me thin. 

My very wits, indeed, seem’d whittled off 
To point and probe it. 

Ideals Made Real , lx. 

why 

Within our souls is much of yearning 
That patient thoughts are slowly turning 
To deepest and to broadest learning 
That cannot answer back a “why?” 

Like sailors, when they watch a sky 
Where fogs, offscourings of the sea, 

Becloud their sight, so often we 
Must guess our reckonings, it may be. 

Then ye who with us onward sail, 

And watch our ways, with faces pale, 

And, hissing fiercely as the gale, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


419 


Our right of reticence deny, 

Ye force us, if we must reply, 

To make your fears increase or lie. 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xxvm. 

WICKEDNESS VS. WISDOM 

Whatever wisdom leaves wickedness in some form 
has entered. Fundamentals of Education . 

WIFE, THE 

Ah, like the sky encircling the sea, 

Embracing his thoughts wherever they be, 

She rests above 
His life with a love 

That binds him fast, yet leaves him free. 

Toward her his thoughts in fancies rise, 

Like mists aglow in the sunset skies, 

And like nights here 
When the stars appear, 

His gloom gives way at the glance of her eyes. 

Would God her heart could ever abide, 

A heaven for his heart’s heaving tide, 

Still calm above 
His restless love, 

And all the storms that over it glide! 

The Wife. 

will {see broad) 

Like wrecks that up and down are toss’d, 

Till plunged beneath the waves and lost, 

How aimlessly, through blame and praise, 
Through depths of nights and heights of days, 

We men are swept along our ways! 

But have our lives no nobler state 
Than drifting thus with tides of fate? — 

No power to stem them, while they feel 
The filling sail, the whirling wheel, 

The steadfast helm that guides the keel? 

Tho’ oft our course be turn’d about 
By wind and wave of hope and doubt, 

Come all our motives from without? 

Does not some impulse oft begin 
With mind’s propelling power within? 


420 


A POETS CABINET 


Is not the soul, whose low depths thrill, 

An offspring of perfection still; 

And Godlike by creative will? 

A Life in Song: Doubting , xv. 

WILLOW SWITCH 

.... You never break a boulder with a willow 
switch. 

.... A switch might crawl beneath the boulder, 
and dislodge it, and make it fall. Then it would break 
itself. On Detective Duty , I. 

WILL-POWER 

There is not 

The littlest finger of the littlest nerve 

In all my frame here, that could summon power 

To move where you moved not. 

.... Ah, then your will 

Is mightier than you deemed it? You can rise 
But when you wish to rise? The haunts of heaven 
Need not have walls to keep you out of them? 

Cecil the Seer , n., 2. 

WILL-POWER MUST BE APPARENT IN TRAINING 

You know the danger for a man who trains wild 
beasts, if accident give them a chance to taste his 
blood. So sometimes with the man who trains, in 
school or camp or factory, those animals that we term 
men. His will is what directs this training; and when 
he lets what fills his heart leak out, they note his loss 
of will-power far more than presence of his love. A 
wise man never lets his veins be drained of life-force to 
augment another’s force till sure that this will not be 
turned against himself. The Little Twin Tramps , I. 

WINDOW-BLINDS 

You do not fear 

Insulting nature when it comes to bless you 
With window-blinds barred tight, as if the day 
Had brought not light but lances? 

Dante f n., I. 

WINE, WHITE 
White, not so? Its hue 
Will fit the sunny air, and make us think 
Of drinking-in the sunshine! Columbus , i., i. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


421 


WING, ON THE 

A spirit conscious of a higher mission 
Is usually on the wing. Columbus , 11., 3. 

WINNING LOVE 

But whenever the good of all good comes, 

That most is worth possessing, 

The feast of which all else are crumbs, 

The viand of which the dressing ; 

When comes true love that to gain, after all, 

Is the one thing in life worth doing, 

Men think it will yield to a beck or a call, 

And does not need pursuing. 

Ah, fools, as little of good we earn 
By ease on earth as by sinning; 

A love for which we are wise to yearn 
Can only be won by the winning. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxvi. 

WISDOM 

Wisdom is not that knowledge of the world which 
the eye receives, which can be pictured upon its pupil. 
It is the methods of the world fused into thought, often 
with untold sufferings, — the image of the actual as 
photographed — amid the glowing fervor of experience, 
burnt in upon the living tissues of the soul, and then 
kept there after the transient din and smoke of words 
and deeds have vanished. 

Suggestions for the Spiritual Life , v. 

He paused the sober vineyard’s toil to see. 

If wisdom came, let go what came before it : 

’T is no aristocrat to need a pedigree. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lviii. 

WISH AND WISDOM 

Thus, like two cowards, clinging each to each, 

Weak wish nudged wisdom, and weak wisdom wish. 
Who gets on better? Ideals Made Real , xm. 
wit and wits 

How much of good is often slain 
By small, sharp shafts of wit, without restraint 
Shot forth in sport, and lodged where one hears no 
complaint. A Life in Song: Daring , xxxvm. 


422 


A POETS CABINET 


The light mind is the bright mind. Wit and wits 
Are twins ; without the other each is lacking. 

Columbus , ii., 2. 

A student of human nature, or lunacy — much the 
same thing — finds out that those whose wits bubble 
over the first are the first to lose their wits; that 
the mind whose thought comes first as a joke to be 
cracked, is the mind that is first to be cracked itself. 

The Ranch Girl , I. 


WITHIN 

It is within that love’s warm springs begin, 
Whose genial flow makes fertile all about. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxxvii. 

WOE 

Men meet woe 

As moaning orchards meet an April blast; 

Their wounded limbs that first sway to and fro 
Are red with blossoms, when the storm has past. 

So sometimes trouble keeps the feelings younger 
Than ever joy could. Many souls they say, 
Deprived of light, for simple sunbeams hunger, 

And robb’d of rest, contract no mildew of decay. 

A Life in Song: Serving , lxxxiv. 


WOES, DEADLIEST 

Those watching death-beds, mark 
That souls, when dying, ere above they spring, 
Breathe deep, then pass away. And so with minds, 
When come the deadliest woes. Down deep in thought 
I scarce had deem’d that aught from hell could roil 
Such dregs of bitterness long undisturb’d. 

Ideals Made Real , xxix. 


WOMAN 

.... What, pray, is a woman? 

.... What 

Is made to woo a man. 

The Aztec God , iv., i. 

. . . . That woman’s gowns 

Are always clinging to you — look as if 
She thought to make a woman of yourself. 
Confound their sex ! 

.... Be not so hard on them. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


423 


.... No, they are soft, 

More soft than cats, and mew, too, ay and scratch. 
Have seen their blisters! ay, have seen a man 
Whose very soul had been scratched out by one. 

Columbus , hi., 1. 
WOMAN AND WAR 

My throbbing heart 
Would spend its blood in blushes for my shame 
Till it forgot to give my being life, 

If, by a single sigh, I durst keep back 
One soldier from the ranks of this just war. 

Cecil the Seer, ill., 2. 
WOMAN AS A man’s FOE 

A man need not have vices of his own to make him 
squeal when squeezed in a woman’s vise. Remember 
Sampson. Strength and steel count little against 
the subtle weapons of a woman. 

On Detective Duty , 111. 
WOMAN, AS A RULER ( See FEELING) 

It is not 

In nature that a man obey a woman. 

And human ways, when not in nature, bode 
Inhuman tampering somewhere. He should know 
That none can turn to she the pronoun he 
Without an 5 that puts a hiss before it. 

Columbus , ill., 1. 
WOMAN, HER ELECTRIC TOUCH 
That in men which yields to the electric touch of a 
woman is in their metal. No ordinary tempering 
saves it. On Detective Duty, in. 

WOMAN, HER FUNCTION 

. . . . What can woman do? — what starts with her? 
.... No matter what. Men sow the seed, you think. 
How could it grow, were it to find no soil? 

Cecil the Seer, 1. 

WOMAN, HER MIND VS. MAN’S 

“And what,” she sigh’d, “is this 
“That men-minds do so well? — discriminate? 

Yet even I, dull woman, I can see 

Brains differ in their grain. But men, forsooth, 

Feel so much matter lodged in their brains — eh? — 


424 


A POETS CABINET 


That they weigh mind like matter in the lump, 

And judge of character, as if ’t were clay: — 

This forms a man — has wisdom, firmness, power; 
And that, a maid — is foolish, fickle, frail, 

And never can be wholly safe, forsooth, 

Except when subject to a man, her lord!” 

Ideals Made Real f x. 

WOMAN SUPERFLUOUS WHERE NOT NEEDED 
A woman, like a merchant’s wares, can never seem 
too dear where she is wanted. But in a place where 
there is no demand for her — well, one might say she 
might be shelved. Tuition for her Intuition , i. 

WOMAN, WHAT A MAN LIKES IN 
.... Is it kind in him to get you to do things that 
Bernard wouldn’t like? 

.... Why should everything I do be determined 
by what Bernard likes or dislikes? 

.... Because he’s such a good fellow! — so fine 
grained! — such a clear complexion! — such white 
teeth! — Why, a moment ago, when he came in here, 
and was standing next to me, his breath was just as 
sweet, just as free from the smell of whiskey or to- 
bacco, as a man always likes to find a girl’s when he 
comes near her, and dreams that, possibly, in certain 
circumstances, he might dare to kiss her! 

.... {snatching the cigarette from her mouth and 
throwing it into the fireplace) . Bah ! — It’s mean of you, 
all the same. Where Society Leads , 11. 

WOMAN, WHEN REJECTING A MAN 

I swore ’t was ever so 

With all her sex. Worth never weigh’d a straw. 

A very satyr could outwoo a sage. — 

Weak woman! — yet she must be weak — in brain 
Or body. Better to be weak in brain! 

She then, perchance, might serve a husband’s thought, 
And wisdom’s voice might rule the family! 

But were her moods too strong to serve his thought, 
She might serve that in him which could not 
think. — 

To wed she-brains, a man should seek to be 
Commended as a fool! Ideals Made Real f xxxix. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


425 


WOMANHOOD 

Faith always waits 

On perfect womanhood. Show men a form 
Whose outward symmetry of nature frames 
A symmetry of soul, whose pure-hued face 
Complexions pureness of the character, 

Whose clear, sweet accents outlet clear, sweet thought, 
Whose burning eyes flash flame from kindled love, 

And all whose yielding gracefulness of mien 
But fitly robes all grace-moved sympathy, — 

Ay, find a soul whose beauty of the shield 
But keeps more bright the blade of brain because 
Of what seems merely ornament, — to her 
All men will yield a spirit’s loyalty. 

The fairy-goddess of the world of fact, 

Dream-sister of the brotherhood of deed, 

An angel minister as well as queen, 

The splendor of her station lifts her high 
But like the sun that she may light us all. 

Columbus, II., 3. 

For that so gentle, babelike sufferer, 

I lost all fear; and, true to womanhood, 

I loved him more for low and helpless moans 
Than ever I had loved him when in health. 

Haydn, xi. 

woman’s absorption when in love 
.... What a fire divine 

Must blaze within a woman’s heart, who deems 
That her one form illumined by its light 
Casts all things else in shade! 

.... Do men love less? 

.... Nay, but have eyes for things they do not love. 

The Aztec God , 11. 
woman’s assurance 
True to her sex, unanswer’d yet assured, 

The woman left. Ideals Made Real , xii. 

woman’s character revealed in private 
Strong character that can convert and use another’s 
thought and feeling for one’s own, is often shown by 
women more in private than in public. 

Tuition for her Intuition , 1. 


426 


A POET'S CABINET 


woman’s GRIEF, AND MAN 
You know no man can flinch it: woman’s grief, 

If there be any manhood left in him, 

Will rouse his efforts to bespeak her peace. 

Ideals Made Real , xviii. 
woman’s influence 
And she, a queen; alas, but, like a queen, 

Was doom’d to hold a throne where rivals came, 

To spy her weakness out, and wrest away 
A power that could be kept by power alone. — 

How sad for woman when her hopes were based 
On practice that must all her heart conceal, 

That must be conquering ever or be crush’d! 

Ideals Made Real t lxix. 
woman’s influence on life 
There are a thousand things that life has need 
of that only women have the brains to bring it — 
the comforts of the home, its furnishings, its food, the 
training of the children there, the tempering of the 
household atmosphere to be congenial to the neigh- 
bors’ households. Let men control in business; only 
women can rule the social circle. Man may make a 
fortune, but it is the woman makes the fortune for- 
tunate in furthering friendship. 

Tuition for her Intuition , i. 
woman’s influence on men’s manners 
We men are so polite that, in that fete called life, 
we serve what might be termed deserts to women more 
often than to men. Their temperament seems apter 
to assert the subtle law that like attracts the like. We 
men may have the strength of steel, but women have 
a magnetism stronger than all steel and draw from us 
the thing we get from them. If they be gentle, we are 
gentlemen. If they be rude, why, we are rude ourselves. 
Would be discourtesy, forsooth, to meet them on 
terms that might not meet their approbation ! Humph , 
all our lives they keep us in our places as planets do 
their satellites. Idem. 

woman’s love 

True flames, these women flicker with the wind. 

But use you breath enough, their natures yield. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


427 


Yet blow for their sakes, not for your ideals. 

One seldom finds a sweetheart sweet enough 
To love her suitor’s pinings for mere whims. 

Nay, they alone our all-in-all would be; 

And so are jealous of our male ideals. 

Then, too, they are creative less than we, 

And cling more to the creature, love and serve 
Embodied life that may be seen and felt. 

You doubt me? — Test it. — Read that rhyme you wrote. 
Inspired by fancy. — Say so ; — still they hint 
“Ah, this was she, or she, whom once he loved.” 

Ideals Made Real , lvi. 
woman’s thoughts 

A woman’s thoughts are echoes, and she echoes 
The thoughts that have been nearest his heart too 
To whom she stands the nearest. Cecil the Seer , 1. 

WOMEN AS CONFIDANTES 

.... No third is needed where one starts ex- 
changing confidences with women. 

.... Not unless he wants to have a witness in 
some future blackmail suit. The Two Paths , ill. 

WOMEN AS SLAVES AND MASTERS 

How women love their fetters! — Best, perhaps! 

They make sweet slaves, but very bitter masters. 

Cecil the Seer, 1. 

WOMEN, BEST ENJOYED WHEN NOT TOO TALKATIVE 

Most of us who have to pitch our tones against a 
woman’s prefer to catch them, as when playing ball, 
one at a time. Tuition for her Intuition , 1. 

WOMEN, EDUCATION OF 

You know the crystal globes clairvoyants look in, 

And think they see as heaven sees then? — Some 
women 

Have crystal souls. One faces them to find 
His thoughts divine, himself akin to God. 

.... If that be woman’s nature 

.... It is not, 

Till polished in the friction of the schools, 

Which some think needless ; but where woman’s mind 
Has never been made bright, the thoughts of men 
Will never flash for it. Cecil the Seer, 1. 


428 


A POETS CABINET 


Heaven preserve 

The world from women rear’d to feel but weak, 
Whose whole experience, nurtur’d not to think, 
Unfolds in passions pert of wishes dwarf’d, 

Afraid of truth and dodging to deceit ! 

Let loose from home, their thing that ought to think 
Is dry and hollow as a sounding-board 
Behind a tongue that, like a weather vane, 

Creaks with the windy scandal of the town 
Till endless malice make one’s ear-drum ache, 

At one spot hammer’d sore, and o’er and o’er, 

With humdrum gossip of surrounding naught. 

Small gain are they, to crown our courtships grand, 
Prinked out with flowers and flattery ! Wise man - 
Flowers draw the bee, and flattery the fool. 

One stings; the other — Laugh not. 

Ideals Made Real , lvi. 

WOMEN, FASHIONABLE, AND CIVILIZATION 

.... If you have so poor an opinion of women, 
why did you marry one — or two for that matter? — 
why not marry a man? 

.... It was not the fashion; but, if things 
keep on as they have been going, it may become 
so. One might be able to control an obstreperous 
boy! 

.... What things keep on? 

.... The processions that some of you women — 
but, thank God, not all of you nor the most of you — • 
are leading. 

.... Leading where? 

.... At the top and bottom of society, where, at 
both ends, our civilization seems going to rot. 

Where Society Leads , 11. 

WOMEN, FRIENDSHIP OF 

You know it well, what friendship craves; and these 
Light, simpering women, testing manhood’s woof 
By worthless nap that tickles their vanity, — 

O I shall wait some coming woman, I, 

Who needs no suing since in soul we suit ; 

Nor ruling either. — Love shall rule us both. 

Ideals Made Real , lvi. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


429 


WOMEN, LOST 

. . . A pretty girl like that out here at night! — 

She might get into trouble. 

.... Why? — Who with? 

.... With anyone who knows what life is worth. 

.... What is it worth? 

. . • . When you have bought an orange, you suck 
its juice. The rest you throw away. 

.... I knew you New York people did that sort of 
thing in business. 

.... And New York people — they make a busi- 
ness of everything. 

.... Get out of men, first, all that they are worth, 
then throw, or let them throw themselves, away? 
And when once thrown away, are lost forever? 

.... Not men, not always — women, though, most 
always ! 

.... Why so? 

.... The more a thing is worth, the more it usually 
weighs; the more it weighs the more it sinks; the more 
it sinks, the less its likelihood to rise itself, or to be 
lifted up by others. The Two Paths , 111. 

WOMEN MUST BE MADE AMENABLE TO LAW 

The men who let a woman start stripping them of 
property, and not protect themselves, would be about 
as shameless as if they let her strip them of their 
clothing. Tuition for her Intuition , 1. 

WOMEN, POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF {see ENFRANCHISE- 
MENT) 

What we want to know is how most wisely to obtain 
the thought that comes from women. It may not be 
true that suffrage is the only, or the best, way. One 
half the energy now spent in pushing for theoretic 
suffrage might bring women the practical results of 
laws they need; nor could obtaining suffrage do with- 
out the energy that needs expending now. For years, 
I lived in Washington, a place where no one votes; 
and did I want to vote? Not I. Why not? I felt 
my rights more safe entrusted to representatives of 
others than of those, myself included, who would have 
formed the voting population. The principle applies 


430 


A POET'S CABINET 


to all our suffrage. Subtract the women well versed 
and refined, who find the polls distasteful; then add 
up the numbers, just the opposite, of women inclined 
to move in flocks, with feeling swayed as party-friend 
or foe may urge or force, and what would follow? — 
You would lessen vastly what now is much too small 
here, — the proportion of well-informed and indepen- 
dent voters. You think it wise to risk results like 
that? Idem, i. 

WOMEN, RUNNING AWAY FROM 

Alone? Alone? — 

With all those maidens praying for your presence? 
.... I dodged behind a tree, then, when they left, 
Came here. 

. . . . A valiant warrior! 

. . . . Yes — with men. 

. . . . With women? 

.... He with her I think is valiant 

Who waives what would be force. 

. . . . And runs away? 

.... Why, yes, if elsewise he might be ungentle. 

The Aztec God, hi. 

WONDERS 

Who search the world, most wonder there to see 
How few the wonders are, where’er they stray. 
Behold, the same fair children, wild with glee; 

The same proud parent, watching where they play; 
The same strong men, bent downward by life’s 
troubles ; 

The same sad dames with tired eyes turn’d above; 
The same small graves where drop life’s bursted 
bubbles, 

Made dark by fears of ill, and bright by hopes of 
love. A Life in Song: Serving , lxxvi. 
woods {see music of nature) 

Away from ways where human wills outwit 
The wisdom that has made earth what it is, 

To where, in that true temple of the spirit, 

The winds are whispering what men know not of, 
And flower and leaf are trembling like the heart 
That feels the presence of the power divine. — 

The Aztec God, iv., i. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


431 


WORD 

Where thought appeals to thought 
The only sovereign is the wisest word, 

Which sometimes is the last word; — any way, 

Is always of the spirit, and needs not 
Accoutrements and courtesies of form 
To prove its prestige. We can waive them, then, 
And let the spirit prompt us as it may. 

Columbus , II., 2. 

words {see call, speech and talk) 

Words are like wrinkles, external marks of internal 
moods. Sometimes by tracing back the derivation of 
a word, one may find out the mental condition that 
originated it. Art in Theory , xvn. 

More to them all than any one of these 
Is he whose words, confined not by the grave, 

Still cheer their thoughts, and guide them in their deeds, 
And, oft repeated to each other, keep 
As bright his memory as do stars by night 
The light of suns that long have sunk to rest. 

A Life in Song: Finale. 

Mere words are wind ; nor all their storm or stress 
Can pack the air so thought cannot see through it. 

Dante , 11., 1. 

When sworn to enter honor’s list, 

Of which his fellows could or would not know, 

His frank soul merely thought the truth to show, 
But he had stopt at words; and earth, that yells 
To cheer the gold-laced swaggerers, who but go 
Unwhipt before their trump to onset swells, 

Will stand no words in protest — better cap-and-bells! 

A Life in Song: Darings lxvii. 
Let thought-built systems fail each modern test; 
On truth beneath all systems faith may rest, 

On truth unshaken by earth’s changing facts, 
Inspiring pure desires and generous acts, 

Where spirit reigns alone, and through all creeds 
Impels all good men toward the self-same deeds, 
Who learn that though their words be contrary, 

All worthy souls have inward sympathy. 

Idem , Seeking , liv. 


432 


A POET'S CABINET 


Without a word 

We walk’d at first, like pilgrims near a shrine 
They much revere, who, fill’d with thrills too fine 
To throb through words accented, satisfy 
Their souls by feeling that the god is nigh. 

Idem , ix. 

WORDS, AS ELEMENTS OF BELIEF 
The walls were always echoing back the words 
You spoke; and no one else was let to speak. 

.... All heard what they believed. 

.... Could they do else 

Than to believe what they were always hearing? — 
Dear words, how we must thank them for our faith ! 

Cecil the Seer , n., 2. 

WORDS OF TRUTH 

Clear as light, come proofs to show 
How the breath of truth is keener than the bayonets of 
its foe; 

How the gentlest words can waken consternation and 
despair ; 

Though they leave no track behind them; nor with 
shadows dim the air; 

Do not glisten in the sunshine; do not thunder o’er the 
plain ; 

Do not flash the cannon’s lightning ; leave no smoke to 
shroud the slain ; — 

Words of truth, re-echoed like the words of Christ, 
that everywhere, 

When they summon powers that lurk in forms pos- 
sess’d of evil there, 

Make them rend the form that held them, leave it 
writhing on the ground, 

While their spirits fly to darkness and forgetfulness 
profound. A Life in Song: Watching , iv. 

WORDS, PASSIONATE ( see ANGER, IMPETUOUS and 
passion) 

Those words were but a whiff, whiff light as breath 
One blows at flies that come to trouble him. 

And can it be that they? — I half believe 
(My words have conjured cursed deeds before) 

The very atoms of the air, like pools, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


433 


Hold spawn-strown vermin-eggs ! If one but speak, 
But break the silence; if his breath but bear 
One faintest puff from passionate heat within, 

Lo, breaking open some accursed shell, 

It hatches forth foul broods of venomous life 
That come, blown backward by the changing wind, 
To haunt him who provok’d their devilish birth! 

By day they sting our eyes, and make us weep; 

By night steal through unguarded gates of sense, 

And sting our souls in dreams ! — My heart ! and you? — 
How could you deem my thoughtless words to be 
The voice of so deform’d a wish as this? 

Haydn , xxxvi. 
WORDS THAT ARE WEAPONS 
True words alone are weapons of true thought. 

If I be free to use these, I am free 

To be truth’s champion. If, to gain the place 

You wish me, or to hold it, being gained, 

I let my tongue be tied, I live a slave. Idem. 
Trust not in words with wind alone to back them. 
Nothing is quite so empty as the sky 
Behind a blow, when once it has blown by. 

Cecil the Seer, I. 

WORDS THAT HURT 

.... We exchanged some words 

. . . . And flung them hard to make them hurt the thing 
They hit, not so? — They made your faces red. 

Dante , I., 2. 

words vs. deeds (see deeds and talk) 

Not how men 

Can fight the air with words, but how their frames 
Can back their words with deeds that free their air 
Of all that blocks right doing, this is that 
By which a man reveals his worth in life. 

Idem, 11., 1. 

Wise men don’t trust the words of those whose 
works deceive. The Little Twin Tramps, in., 1. 

WORDS, WHEN INFLUENTIAL 

Words are a currency that owe their worth 
Less to their substance, often, than their source. 

Cecil the Seer, 1. 


434 


A POET'S CABINET 


work {see faith and knowledge) 

The air of heaven to-day is full of sunshine. 

Shut in here do you feel it? No; none do 
But those who journey forth to do life’s work. 

Dante , n., I. 

WORK MAKES MEN VALUE THINGS 
It’s those whose work has earned them homes who 
prize them, and will work to keep them. 

The Little Twin Tramps , ill., 2 . 

WORK, UNDERTAKEN TO DROWN GRIEF 

I strove to drown my grief in work. The work 
Was but a worm’s that eats from day to day 
The morrow’s bed, at morning dragging on 
A soulless trunk, through troubles void of hope. 

Ideals Made Real , lxii. 

WORK VS. RECREATION {see REST) 

Men measure all a day is worth by work that they 
can do in it. Just think! — One might as well say skies 
were made for clouds, and not for suns, or years for 
winter, not for summer; or plants for thorns, and not 
for roses; or life for men, and not for women; or lips 
for drinking; not — tut, tut! — A day’s worth measured 
by its work ! — As if a man’s day were a donkey’s. Our 
donkey takes his pleasure on the farm exactly once a 
year; so papa. The Little Twin Tramps y I. 

WORKING FOR A LIVING 

A few centuries ago, both the souls and bodies of 
those who worked for a living, whether men or women, 
were supposed to belong to those for whom they 
worked. To-day this sort of thing is played out. 
Those who work for themselves are the most likely to 
be independent, — to belong to nobody but themselves, 
and therefore the most worthy of respect for what 
they are in themselves. 

The Snob and the Sewing Girl , 11. 
WORKING WOMEN VS. ARISTOCRATIC {see ARISTOCRACY) 

.... A woman of the working classes 

.... Is not of the aristocratic classes. I know it. 
They do not work. They expect others to work for 
them. Humph! — I know plenty of them, who go in 
the very best society, — ay, in our society, too — who, 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


435 


rather than lift one finger to do any work for themselves, 
would prefer to have others steal for them. Idem. 

WORLD 

The world for every man 
Holds but his own world, be it large or small. 

A Life in Song: Serving , xv. 
WORLD, LEAVING THE 

God made our nature. Who make way with it, 

Make way with manhood, turn to suicide. 

He made the world where works His Providence 
To train our life. Who leave the world, leave Him — 

Haydn , xlii. 

WORLD, THE NEW, DESCRIBED BY COLUMBUS 

You see what we have brought: — 
These birds and animals unknown to Spain, 

All promising vast wealth in plumes and furs; 

These trees and plants that grow like reeds in swamps, 
And covered thick as leaves with ready food; 

These aromatic herbs, in which all forms 
Of sickness find a sure and natural cure; 

This gold that lies upon the soil like dust, 

Or else like pebbles tumbling from the cliffs, 

And easily moulded into ornaments ; 

These pearls and gems that line the river-beds. 

Columbus , IV., 2. 

But what that land contains is in supply 
As far beyond the treasure here, as is 
A whole vast continent beyond the store 
That can be packed in one small vessel. Yes, 

That realm of boundless wealth in rock and soil 
And boundless progress for the state and soul, 

Past all that human fancy can conceive, 

Lies there, embed in crystal seas and skies, 

A wondrous gift, fresh from the hand of God, 

As if untarnished by the touch of man, 

Awaiting your most Christian Majesties. Idem. 
Add these brave people, sons of God like us, 

With generous natures and compliant wills, 

Who met us kneeling, as we knelt on shore, 

With reverent souls prepared by heaven itself 
To welcome us as heavenly messengers. Idem. 


436 


A POETS CABINET 


They thought us fresh from heaven: 

Our flesh was fair; that wide, wild sea our slave. 

Oh, what a race to be made Christians of! 

Idem , iv., I. 

Out there, 

Except with chiefs — it is the same, you know, 

With our high classes — people live in pairs, 

As birds do ; and, myself, I saw no hint 
Of lust or competition. They all seem 
To love their neighbors as themselves, and own 
All things in common. Why, to us they gave 
Whatever we could ask ; and often too 
Without the dimmest prospect of return. 

Idem. 

WORLD, THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS 

Y ou villain, to say that ! 

. . . , Humph! I have seen the world, and tell you 
truth. 

You deem the truth is villainy? — it is — 

The truth about this world. 

The Aztec God , iv., I. 

WORLD, THE, VS. THE CHURCH ( See CHURCH, FORM AND 

spirit, and training) 

. . . . Poor youth, when you know more about the 
world 

. . . . I shall know more about such men as you; 

Know how the dust of earth can make one blind, 

And din can make one deaf, till skies can blaze 
And heaven’s voice thunder, yet no sight nor sound 

Reach 

. . . . What?— 

. . . . What was a soul ! But there are souls 

Are stolen too when stoled. The devil’s hand 
Outdoes the deacon’s. There is nothing left 
But vestment. All the barterer’s priceless birthright 
Goes for the mess of pottage that he feeds on. 

Not strange such like to limit other’s joys, 

Turn nature inside out and upside down, 

Claim spirit rules where all are slaves of sense, 

And heaven their realm though all is rimmed by hell. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


437 


“ The world, ” what means this, but the world alone, — 
The mass, devoid of mind, truth, spirit, love? — 

But holds no Church the same? — A mass? — ay, ay. 
Devoid of mind? — Why not? — But show the place 
It crowds not reason out to edge in faith. — 

But “ faith,' ” say you, “is reasonable”? — Ay, 

When in it there is reason ; when the thing 
In which it trusts is truth. But, ah, too oft, 

Just prick the forms, and back of them you find — 
What? — truth? — nay, nay, a priest — a man. 

Haydn , Li. 

worldliness ( see spiritual) 

Some more, some less, with little to love, 

We all to the sky oft leave the dove. 

We delve away in the depth of our trade; 

And all get dusty before well paid. 

Some like the dust; some mourn its need; 

And some are only intent to succeed. 

Too may grow prostitutes, hugging to all, 

Good, bad, or indifferent, beauty or scall, 

Till all wishes that worth would have kept 
Die out of the man unwept. 

No pride or shame for himself or his kind 
Brings up to the cheek one blush. 

Whatever is there is a counterfeit flush, — 
Mere paint on the surface of sham behind. 

Love and Life , liii. 

Ah, now, 

I know how Adam grieved that Eve could fall; 

How Eve herself, when round her soul first crept 
The serpent’s cautious coils of smooth deceit, 

To strap her inch by inch ! I read it now, 

That tale : ’t is all an allegory, ay ; — 

That serpent means the world. The world steals 
round, 

Intent to seize and own each heir of heaven. 

Not long are souls allow’d ideal life, 

Not long unfetter’d sense or hearts unbound: 

Our smiles grow stiffer, till, some fatal day, 

The last is clutch’d and held, a hideous grin. 

Then, when the body stirs not with the soul, 


438 


A POET'S CABINET 


The last nerve wrested from the Spirit’s rule, 

Naught in us left of love, the world unwinds: 

Our capturer dissolves in mist or dust : — 

And we, for its embrace, have lost our God! 

Haydn , L. 

worldly {see lust, soul and spirit) 

This world has ways where far we roam 
From the purer light 
That our souls deem bright, 

And yet this world is now our home; 

And planted here for some good cause 
Like seed to grow 
In a soil below, 

The laws of our lives are worldly laws. 

We cannot live the life on high, 

We cannot be 
In all things free, 

Till the flower shall bloom and its fragrance fly. 

Till then, hemm’d in from heaven by earth, 

’T is ours to reach 
For the good in each ; 

Nor waive the higher for lower worth. 

A Life in Song: Loving , xxxii. 
WORLDLY WAYS 

If wiser than the world we were, 

Why should we act, forsooth, in worldly ways? 
What need that all should don the uniform 
That fits men for the social march of fools? 

Ideals Made Real , lxii. 
WORMS, CRUSHING 

The corner stones of monumental deeds 
Must always crush some worms. 

Cecil the Seer , I. 
worry {see jar of life) 

Does not the world, then, worry life enough, — 

That one should crave for more to worry him? 

Do I so lack for exercise? Ah me! 

Some nervous mothers — bless them! — shake their 
babes. 

I never deem’d it wise; oh, no — am sure 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


439 


The friction frets the temper of the child. — 

Not natural, you see: God never shakes 
The ground with earthquakes when we wish for spring. 
He does not drive life from its germ, He draws 
By still, bright warmth. Haydn , xvi. 

worship of god ( see form and spirit, and ritualism) 
How vain is worship, when its grandeur calls 
Regard away from heaven to human skill! 

Far better level all our temples’ walls 

Than hide the thought of Him who rear’d the hill! 
Ay, better hush the praise that stirs the senses, 

Than have it drown the still small voice within ; 

And better have no church for our offenses 

Than splendid rites that daze the soul made blind 
to sin. A Life in Song: Serving , xliv. 

And, think you, writ or vestment, art or arch, 

Can image Him, or His domain unbound? 

Nay, trust my word, we worship Him the best, 
When two or three together, loving truth 
And one another, thus repeat, once more, 

An incarnation, imitating Christ. 

Ideals Made Real , lxxiii. 

As men’s lives are, so their thoughts are; groping in 
the dark they feel 

Forms of flesh or robes that wrap them, and forget 
what both conceal. 

Clouds hang low, and hide the sky, and make men 
think that heaven is low, 

Till they kiss the dust, half hoping God is dust, and 
worshipt so. A Life in Song: Watchings iv. 

In a sense, 

All worship . . . springs from what is true. 

For if to sin it ever could be due,. 

Could grafts of true religion flourish now 
Upon the old religious nature’s bough? 

But if, in spite of tendencies to sin, 

We still believe men’s motives pure within, 

Then all that God has made appears to be — 

Be leaf, limb, flower, or fruit the part we see — 
Some perfect part still of life’s perfect tree. 

Idem , Seeking , xxiv. 


440 


A POETS CABINET 


WORSHIP OF MEN 

Worship is the interest men pay 
For worth when they can get it — justly due 
To men of principle. Cecil the Seer , I. 

If any idol’s niche be tenantless, 

The one all worship is the one all want there. 

Idem . 

WORTH 

Too often in the judgments of this world 
Worth yields to weight. Columbus , i. f 3. 

WORTH, ETERNAL 

The force that keeps eternal worth from light 
Is but of time — a thing short-lived. 

Idem t v., 2. 

WRECKED, A LIFE 

How fast he fails! If there were once a time 
We feared he might be wrecked, a time has come 
When his firm spirit reels, the prey of waves 
Far worse than waves that sweep the sea alone. 
Such havoc has fierce envy wrought in him, 

What wonder if soon nature, in revolt, 

Should doff the guise this world has torn to rags 
And give him something richer? Idem . 

WRECKED AND RESCUED 

Then soon, as a coffin falls to a grave, 

The yawl sank down, but alack! 

Like fingers white the crests of the wave 
Were clutching and flinging it back. 

Then, whirled, as it were, in a drunkard’s dance, 
It staggered, anon, and lunged, 

Then, tilted aside, like a hostile lance, 

At the hull of the wreck it plunged. 

Three times, in vain, that helpless yawl 
Toward the deck of the wreck was tost. 

Three times the wrecked, as it back would fall, 
Looked down with the look of the lost. 

Then shouts came snapping like whips the blast, 
The yawl to the boom had clung ; 

And, one by one, from the wreck, at last, 

Black forms like bales were flung. 

The Religion of Rescue. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


441 


wrinkle {see words) 

A wrinkle shows the will. 

How Barton Took the General. 

WRINKLED 

Brows always knit grow wrinkled in their prime. 

A Life in Song: Daring , xxx. 

WRITING {see LITERATURE, POEMS and POETS) 
WRITING ABOUT VS. RIGHTING EVILS 

.... I don’t believe in writing about evils and, 
at the same time, not trying to right them. 

.... But Dick and Jack say that’s what they are 
trying to do. 

.... They could do it much more effectively. 

.... How? 

.... If they think that it’s the millionaires that 
cause society to be corrupt, it’s their first duty to cease 
to be millionaires. What Money Can't Buy , iv 
WRITING, AND FEELING 

.... How do you feel when you write that sort of 
thing? 

.... Feel? 

.... Yes; a man can’t be inspired without feeling 
it, can he? 

.... I should think you would feel like a balloon 
when it has lost its ballast, and gone bounding up 
into the highest sunshine. 

.... Or like a hen that has dropped an egg, and is 
trembling into cackles from sheer nervous exhaustion. 

.... Or like a fellow who has flooded himself 
with so much beer that he is obliged to belch it over- 
board — very, very light-headed. Idem , II. 

WRITING AS RELATED TO ART 

A man need not be a genius, in order to write well, 
and if he be a genius, he cannot write well without 
developing his gift according to the methods common 
to every art. The Literary A rtist and Elocution. 

WRONG, ENDURING CHARACTER OF 

Who can tell 

What ages it may take to overtake 

The wrong one’s own wrong lashes into flight ! 

Cecil the Seer , 11., 2. 


442 


A POETS CABINET 


WRONG, FIGHTING AND RIGHTING 
.... To yield to wrong, is not to fight it. 

.... To double wrong, is not to right it. 

The Little Twin Tramps , III., 2. 
WRONG, ONE OVERBALANCING MUCH RIGHT 
It is not what has been but what is that moves the 
senses, which, far more than sense, determine human 
judgments. This is why, I take it, that so often one 
careless wrong can overbalance a life-long care in 
doing right. 

.... But is that just? 

.... No; true. The Little Twin Tramps , iv. 

WRONG THAT THRIVES 

Wrong that thrives, becomes presumption; plans to 
make the right retreat ; 

Blows with madden’d lips the trumpet heralding its 
own defeat, 

Blows, till righteous indignation hails its opportunity, 
Glad to break a guilty peace, and crush its foe eter- 
nally. A Life in Song: Watching , hi. 

YANKEES 

In our right merry State of Maryland, 

No Yankees with their endless reprimand 
Make men run mad with isms fit to wear 
Strait- jackets! we their notions will not stand. 

Idem , Daring , XLVIII. 
YEARS, EFFECTS OF 

A few short years, how soon their sun and storm 
And shifting seasons change one’s face and frame ; 
And what one vaguely deems himself, transform 
To that which friend and foe alike disclaim: 

How calm the heart, which once those calls to fame 
Thrill’d through like beatings of a signal drum ! 

Those throbs, by turns, of hope and fear, how 
tame ! — 

Familiar ticks of life’s old pendulum, 

Wound up to vibrate on till hope and fear are dumb. 

Idem } xii. 

YGGDRASIL 

While thus he spoke, I, dead to sight and sound, 

Had walk’d abstracted, till I mark’d around 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


443 


Strange shadows quivering over all the ground, 

The which, anon, far darker would be made. 

They startled me; for what had caused the shade? 

No tree nor cliff about us rose between 
The moon-light and ourselves to form a screen. 

But when I glanc’d above, there met my sight 
As high as clouds could be, as wild a light 
As ever man could see, — light coming not 
From moon or stars; one could not judge from what. 
As lightning were, if constant, so it glared 
Athwart the sky, and tore and cross’d and flared. 

That strange scene lasted long; but yet the moon 
In time came forth again. Then climbing soon 
Some mighty ledges, we at last survey’d 
From distant heights the forms that caused the shade : 
We saw the giant ash Yggdrasil now 
That loom’d with many a thick and swaying bough 
Above the plain through which our feet had pass’d. 
But think not leaves that had the shadows cast 
Had bridg’d but our short pathway, and no more. 
The limbs were leagues in length, and rose to soar 
Above the earth like mountain-forests wide, 

Yet cloud-borne, needing not a mountain-side. 

They cover’d all the north, yet hung as high 
Above the darkness of the western sky; 

And far off through the east they stretch’d away 
Till flushing at the touch of coming day. 

Ah, where was ever aught like this tree seen! 

Beside it, a mere wind-bent twig, I ween 
Was that Aswatha by the Hindoo known, 

Or Persia’s Gogard, or the Zampuh grown 
In Thibet — figured o’er with mystic signs 
Which made but little wise its wise divines — 

Or Eden’s too, reputed to have grown 

The seeds of these through every nation sown. 

Of them my guide discours’d, the while we scann’d 
Yggdrasil’s roots; one in the west where band 
The fiends of darkness in their foul Mistland : 

And there the serpent lies like lengthen’d night, 

And gnaws the bark, nor sates his appetite; 

And one was in the north where Frost-Kings dwell, 


444 


A POETS CABINET 


And drafts of wisdom drink from Mimir’s well, 

While ever in its crystal depths below 

The cool brain sees the mirror’d pole-star glow; 

And one was in the east, hard by the morn 
And Urdar-fountain, where the patient Norn 
Perceives the present, future, and the past, 

Nor slights the small, nor shudders at the vast. 
Thence, heaved from earth to heaven, bridged o’er 
the dark, 

The rainbow-bifrost bends, on which we mark 
Its warden, Heimdall, who his vigil keeps 
With marvelous ears, which, even while he sleeps 
With birdlike lightness, hear the grasses grow 
And wool on sheep ten thousand miles below! 

Beyond his place uploom high Asgard-homes 
Of gods, and Gladsheim with its golden domes. 

There too, along Idavollr’s wondrous fields, 

Vingolf appears, which hush’d retirement yields 
For Frigga and her suite, — a wilderness 
Of lawns and lanes and arbors numberless, 

Dim nights of groves and glowing days of flowers, 
And lakes and streams and fairy fountain showers, — 
A place where wish could every want confess, 

And all desire be drugged in drowsiness. 

Idem, Seeking , xxx-xxxii. 

YIELD 

Shall we fight? 

It might be useless ; and it must be wise 
To keep the right, when with us, with us yet. 

No; let us yield. My brother, there are times 
When wrongs are great that they may be perceived 
And emphasize the need of their redress. 

Columbus , v., i. 

YIELDING 

So gentle, so yielding, your face all aglow 
To follow each friend, and never say “No,” 

The skies too cloudless dawned for you, 

Too sunny and warm — oh, nothing grew! 

Your golden fields that we fondly saw 
Were filled with a grainless crop of straw. 

The Last Home Gathering . 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


445 


YOUNG VS . OLD MAN 

You are a young man with a young man’s dreams. 

You are an old man; and an old man schemes. 

Cecil the Seer , i. 
youth {see boy and children) 

Too young as yet to know 

How youth alone to human love is dear, 

Before warm tides of life in veins that glow, 

Have lost the heat and hue of heaven from which they 
flow. A Life in Song: Daring , xliii. 

Ye, as well, with new hearts beating in the ranks of 
human life ; 

Ye whose youth itself assures us good will still main- 
tain the strife; 

Ye whose tread is recreation, and whose every breath 
a joy, 

Not exhausted yet in paths that earthly smoke and 
dust annoy; 

Ye whose cheeks to flame-hue kindle, fired by all the 
faith ye feel, 

Not yet frosted by the winters that have chill’d men’s 
older zeal ; 

Ye whose eyes are skies to spirits, whirl’d as worlds 
from change to change, 

Not yet check’d by disappointment, so ye dare not 
test the strange; 

Ye whose wills ne’er cringed in failure nor surrendered 
flags of hope, 

But can look for victory still in highest spheres, of 
broadest scope; 

Do ye know how old age rallies when it hears your 
bounding tread? 

How, in youth’s endearing presence, all things else 
beloved have fled? 

Angels even see I bending through this thick and 
troubled air, — 

But for you so fresh from God, might earth and heaven 
too both despair. Idem , Watching , xxiv. 

Ah, those little verst 

In the codes that are current turn first from them all 

To the herald that comes to trump a new call. 


446 


A POETS CABINET 


Those nearest their youth 
Live nearest the breasts that glow with the truth, 
And welcome it gratefully warm from the heart. 

Unveiling the Monument . 

And now he lived for weeks in that bright land 
Where youth appears in endless dawn to dwell; 
Where skies of pearl o’er golden clouds expand; 

And every breeze o’erflows with sweets that well 
From warbling birds, and burst each blossom’s 
bell; 

Where every thorn that yet shall pave one’s way 
Is strung with dews that coming joys foretell; 

And all the glitter of the opening day 

Still blinds the eye to all that else might cause dismay. 

A Life in Song: Daring , lv. 

And fresh little thoughts in tones that tinkle, 

As dance the dimples that round them wrinkle, 
More dear to refresh the soul with delight 
Than all of their elders’ reason and right. 

For the healthful, heartful blush 

Of youth’s fair spring-time’s flower and fruit, 

Is never the autumn’s hectic flush 

Of a life that fades and dies at the root. 

Love and Life } xn. 

Alas, how oft in youth’s chill morn 
Their tears alone are the dews that adorn 
The natures that wake 
To the light of a day beginning to break! 

And oft how long, ere the light will burst, 

The mists of the valley surround them first ! 

Unveiling the Monument . 

Though gray-beards might recall a former time 
When many an indiscretion marr’d his youth, 
None blamed him now for any earlier fault. 

In all completed pictures of this life, 

Dark tints but give the bright ones rare relief, 
Defects in youth, because they are defects, 

But prove more merit in the one who turns 
His poor resources into rich results. 

A Life in Song: Note vi. 


SELECTED QUOTATIONS 


447 


YOUTH, FORMER AND MODERN 
Oh, happy days of youth! when empty sport 
Of mere imagination — fancied game — 

Could fill the hunter's pouch to overflowing! 

Ay, how much better than the days of age — 

Alas, I fear it, too, of modern youth 
For whom, so rich in matter, poor in mind, 

We manufacture implements of play 
That clip at fancies till they all fit facts, 

Plane joys to toys, and level games to gain, 

Till every pleasure palls that fails to pay 
In scales that rate life’s worth by what it weighs 
When all the spirit’s buoyancy is lost. 

West Mountain. 
zeal (. see impetuous) 

Some men there are, whose moods, on fire for truth, 
Burn like that bush that Moses, one time, saw, 
And never lose the fresh, fair charms of youth. 

Their souls from heaven itself their ardor draw, 
Nor burn according to an earthly law. 

Their zeal, when kindled, kindles joy in those 
Whom worldly heat would but repel or awe; 

Nor ever warps the soul that near them goes, 

But by its warmth allures to love that through it 
glows. A Life in Song: Daring , mi. 

And while he longed to champion this fight 
His life appear’d a tourney, he a knight. 

A young Don Quixote, most on guard to dare, 

He harm’d more good, through zeal in need of light, 
Than any wrong his efforts could impair; 

And fill’d with dust the way just where all needed air. 

Idem , lx. 

What love I have, inspires me in my soul ; 

And, like the soul, it must express itself 
Through every fibre binding me to life; 

And like the soul, too, I believe it comes. 

From some far realm divine to make divine 
Myself, my world, and all that dwell in it. 

A man who feels like this, and would not fight 
For church and state and home, would be a devil. 

Dante , I., i. 


448 


A POET'S CABINET 


ZEAL USING FORCE 

When unselfish zeal 

Demands investment in the mail of force, 

He that of old had spirit to inspire 

Swings but a sword that cleaves a scar for greed. 

Columbus , iv., i. 


THE END 


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subject. 

“It can hardly fail to make talent more rational, genius more conscious of the 
principles of art, and the critic and connoisseur better equipped for impression, 
judgment, or appraisement. ” — N. Y. Times. 

“In spite of all that has been written on the subject from widely contrasted 
standpoints, this manual has distinct claims on students. ” — The Standard (London). 

“ His evidence is clear and straightforward, and his conclusions eminently scholarly 
and sound.” — Vanity Fair (London.) 

“In his scientific excursion, he makes hard things easy to the lay mind. The 
serious student of art cannot fail to find the book interesting, and in certain import- 
ant matters convincing.” — Manchester (England) Guardian. 

“This book is a valuable contribution to an important subject which may help 
us to understand more fully not only that a picture, or a poem, or a musical com- 
position is good, but also why it is good, and what constitutes its excellence.” — The 
Christian Register (Boston). 

“So lucid in expression and rich in illustration that every page contains matter of 
deep interest even to the general reader.” — Boston Herald. 

“ Dr. Raymond’s book will be invaluable. He shows a knowledge both extensive 
and exact of the various fine arts, and accompanies his ingenious and suggestive 
theories by copious illustrations.” — The Scotsman (Edinburgh). 

“The whole philosophy underlying this intelligent art-criticism should be given 
the widest possible publicity.” — Boston Globe. 

The Orators Manual. i2mo .... $1.50 

A Practical and Philosophic Treatise on Vocal Culture, Emphasis, and Gesture, 
together with Hints for the Composition of Orations and Selections for Declamation 
and Reading, designed as a Text-book for Schools and Colleges, and for Public 
Speakers and Readers who are obliged to Study without an Instructor, fully revised 
with important Additions after the Fifteen Edition. 

“It is undoubtedly the most complete and thorough treatise on oratory for the 
practical student ever published. ” — The Educational Weekly, Chicago. 

“I consider it the best American book upon technical elocution. It has also 
leanings toward a philosophy of expression that no other book written by an Ameri- 
can has presented. ” — Moses True Brown, Head of the Boston School of Oratory. 

“The work is evidently that of a skilful teacher bringing before students of oratory 
the results of philosophical thinking and successful experience in an admirable form 
and a narrow compass.” — J, W. Churchill, Professor of Homiletics, Andover Theo- 
logical Seminary. ..... 

“ I have long wished for just such a book. It is thoroughly practical, and descends 
into details, really helping the speaker.” — J. M. Hot pin, D.D., Professor of Horn- 
lletics Yslc. 

“The completeness, exactness, and simplicity of this manual excite my admira- 
tion. It is so just and full of nature.” — A. T. McGill, D.D., LL.D., Professor of 
Homiletics, Princeton. 

The Writer (with Post Wheeler, Litt.D.) i2mo. $1.00 

A Concise, Complete, and Practical Text-book of Rhetoric, designed ^ aid in the 
Appreciation, as well as Production of All Forms of Literature, Explaining, for the 
first time, the Principles of Written Discourses by correlating them to those of Oral 
discourse. Former editions fully revised. . 

“A book of unusual merit. A careful examination creates the impression that the 
exercises have been prepared by practical teachers, and the end in view is evidently 
to teach rather than to give information.” — The Pacific Educational Journal. 

“The pupil will forget he is studying rhetoric, and will come to express himself for 
the pure pleasure he has in this most beautiful art.* Indiana School Journal. * # 

“It reaches its purpose. While especially valuable as a text-book in schools, it is 
a volume that should be in the hands of every literary worker. State Gazette, 

“The treatment is broader and more philosophical than in the ordinary text-book. 
Every species of construction and figure is considered. The student has his critical 
and literary sense further developed by . . . the best writings in the language used 
to illustrate certain qualities of style.” — The School Journal. 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, New York and London, Publishers 


TEXT-BOOKS BY PROFESSOR RAYMOND 

Ethics and Natural Law. 8vo. . . .Net, $ 2 . 25 

A Reconstructive Review of Moral Philosophy, Applied to the Rational Art of 
Living, — a Book that is in effect a Continuation and Completion of the Author's 
well-known ^Esthetic Works, showing the Relationship of the Principles underlying 
Art to the Culture of Character. 

The lines of thought presented in this volume differ, in important regards, from 
those unfolded in former theories of Ethics. It is here maintained that morality is 
conditioned upon desires; — that desires may arise in the mind or in the body; and, 
in both cases, are expressed through a man’s thinking as well as acting; — that desires 
of the mind, according to the testimony of both metaphysics and science, seek 
objects seen or heard, the mental effects of which can be unselfishly shared with 
others; whereas desires of the body, as of touch and taste, seek selfish and exclusive 
possession of that which ministers to individual indulgence — that conscience is a 
consciousness of conflict between these two classes of desires; and that this con- 
sciousness can best be made to cease by producing an experience of harmony through 
subordinating rather than suppressing desires of the body whose life they serve. 
A little thinking will discover moreover, that this conception of conscience accords 
with the nature of a mind that is influenced by suggestion and reason more power- 
fully than by dictation and compulsion; — as well, too, as with the requirements of 
all phases of spiritual religion, because this theory shows how body and mind may 
be separated after death, and the latter alone survive, and yet how, even in these 
conditions, a mind that has not learned, in this life, to subordinate the physical and 
material may still carry with it the bias of their influence. The volume endeavors 
to make clear, too, that the history of ethical theories records no denial of the exist- 
ence of this conflict in consciousness; — and that a recognition of the full import of 
this fact would remove the differences between them, and furnish a single philo- 
sophic principle fundamental to them all; — also that few, if any, immoral acts in 
private or public life could fail to be detected, prevented, or corrected by an appli- 
cation to practice of the tests that accord with this theory. 

"The student of ethics will considerably fortify his knowledge of the history of 
ethical thought by reading the book, especially the first twelve chapters. In these 
Mr. Raymond embodies, with copious references, his extensive knowledge of what 
has been written and thought by moral philosophers. On pp. 63-67, for instance, 
will be found in footnotes a kind of classified anthology of all the definitions given 
of conscience by modern writers. The various ethical theories holding the field do 
not, he thinks, recognize as indispensable the cooperation, in every slightest detail 
of thought and feeling, of the two necessary factors of every desire; and he claims 
that his own doctrine keeps to the purpose he avows in his opening chapter, — to 
draw no inference, and to advance no theory, not warranted by known facts as 
ascertainable in connection with the operations of natural law. . . . Chapters 
XIII to XXIII deal acutely and comprehensively with the various sides of American 
life.” — London (England) Times. 

In an article entitled A Desirable Acquaintance, Prof. A. S. Hobart, D.D., of Crozer 
Theological Seminary, after mentioning his twenty years’ experience in teaching 
Ethics, says, "I find this book the only one that has come within the range of my 
reading which has, for the basis of its system, what I have found to be satisfactory. 
The writer assumes that there is, in the nature of things, a law of ethical conduct 
as continuous and self-evincing as is the law of physical health. . . . The study 
of psychology has opened the mind to inspection as we open the back of a watch- 
case and see the wheels go round; and this study lays its crowns of victorious ex- 
plorations at the feet ef ethics. . . . His view is that conscience is the sense of 
conflict between bodily and mental desires, . . . therefore, not a guide; it is 
only a sense of lostness in the woods, that wants a guide. Good sense and good 
religion are the guides to be consulted. By many illustrations and very clear 
reasoning, he verifies his view. Then, ... he takes up the task — unusual in 
such books — of showing how the leading moral qualities ean and ought to be cul- 
tivated. In view of my own careful reading of the book, I venture to call attention 
to it as a most fertile source of instruction and suggestion for ethical teaching.” — 
The Baptist. 

" Professor Raymond attacks materialism and militarism. . . . He shows that 
the materialist makes morality depend on what is external to man, and that the 
militarist relies on physical force for the promotion of morality. . . . There is 
much in this book to commend, especially its sincerity. . . . The author is some- 
times too advanced ... he is, in fact, a moral revolutionist. But he always tries 
to determine not what is pleasant but what is just.” — Rochester (N. Y.) Post-Express. 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, New York and London, Publishers 


TEXT-BOOKS BY PROFESSOR RAYMOND 

“The book Ethics and Natural Law is an interesting statement of the author’s 
theory that the ethical life is a harmonious life in which the antagonisms between 
mind and body are reconciled by the dominance of mind. The consciousness of 
conflict between body and mind accounts for what we call conscience which tells 
that the conflict should be ended. It is ended when the desires of the body in the 
whole realm of human relationships are subordinated to the desires of the mind. 
The analogy between the agsthetic and moral harmonies is excellently developed, 
and one is reminded of the Platonic principle of the harmonious subordination of 
the lower to the higher. In the statement of the various ethical theories which the 
author reviews he is clear and satisfactory. The classification of his material is 
consistent throughout. His emphasis on the necessity of the subordination, and 
not the destruction of the desires of the body, is of notable importance. His doc- 
trine calls for the spiritual utiliz ation of the natural powers and makes mind supreme 
in the individual, the social, and the governmental life of mankind." — John A. 
McIntosh, D.D., Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, McCormick 
(Presbyterian) Theological Seminary. 

“A working theory of ethics that has much to recommend it. Experts in this 
field of inquiry have long taken for granted the conflict between the larger ends of 
society and the narrower ends pursued by the individual. The author emphasizes 
the deeper clash within the individual between the desires of the body and those of 
the mind, noting that while both are natural, the lower impulses should always be 
held in subordination to the higher. He would have the mind’s desires kept upper- 
most in all the phases of individual and collective life, — in courtship, marriage, 
family training, the general relations between employers and employees, forms of 
government, and the framing and administering of laws. . . . Permanently 
beneficial results in labor disputes can be reached not through resort to force but 
only through appeals to the mind . . . and he is a severe critic of executives who 
further the interests of their party at the expense of the country’s interests. The 
work contains an excellent summary of ancient and modern ethical theories.’’ — 
Boston Herald. 

“When once you make desire dynamic, you have a spiritual actuating principle. 
This is the basis upon which you have reared a stately ethical edifice. Its founda- 
tion rests on man, on human rationality; and story rises above story of ever higher 
personal, social, and political relations, with the light of the universe of God stream- 
ing through the windows. The absence of the terminology of theology is more than 
compensated by the high quality of the religious ferver and spiritual insight. I 
commend this book very strongly, — its scholarly ripeness, its intellectual honesty, 
and its ethical purpose.” — Dr. Abram Simon, Rabbi of “The Hebrew Congrega- 
tion," and President of the Board of Education of Washington, D. C. 

“A valuable contribution to Ethical theory. While his system has something in 
common with intuitionism, utilitarianism, and ethical evolutionism, he is not a 
disciple of any of them. . . . The main thesis of the book is that there are two 
classes of desires, — those of the body and those of the mind; and that there is con- 
tinual struggle for the mastery between them. . . . This thesis is supported by 
n um erous citations from writers on ethics which show the author’s wide and thorough 
acquaintance with the literature of the subject. The style of the treatise is a model 
of clearness; it is dignified but never dull or dry, and it is occasionally illumined by 
flashes of humor. The work is a practical guide to right living, as the author applies 
his theory to every department of human life, individual social, national, and sheds 
the light of his wisdom on every question of human conduct. Students of ethics 
cannot afford to neglect this book. It ought to be in the libraries of parents of sons 
and daughters approaching manhood and womanhood.” — The Chronicle (Prot. 
Epis.) Monthly. 

“Professor Raymond extracts a fundamental principle that largely reconciles 
existing ethical theories . . . makes distinctions that have vitality, and will repay 
the necessary study and application.” — Scientific American. 

“In the course of his argument the author discusses at considerable length the 
various factors and agencies that contribute to the making and unmaking of the 
lives of men and women in so far as their usefulness to their fellow creatures is 
concerned. In his treatment of these subjects he is at all times candid and fair- 
minded, in most cases reviewing both sides of the question at issue.” — Chronicle 
Telegraph (Pittsburg, Pa.). 

"The author writes with a purpose that seeks to be exhaustive, and to cover 
much of the field of practical living. He is analytic and comprehensive, and, above 
all scholarly. He has made a contribution in this field of research that will be 
received with enthusiasm, and readily turned into the realm of productive thought.’’ 
— Western (Methodist) Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, Ohio. 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, New York and London, Publishers 


OTHER BOOKS BY PROFESSOR RAYMOND 

Fundamentals in Education, Art, and Civics: Essays and 
Addresses. 8vo, cloth. Net, $140; by mail, $1.53. 

“ Of fascinating interest to cultured readers, to the student, the teacher, the poet, 
the artist, the musician, in a word to all lovers of sweetness and light. The author has 
a lucid and vigorous style, and is often strikingly original. What impresses one is 
the personality of a profound thinker and a consummate teacher behind every 
paragraph.” — Dundee Courier, Scotland. 

"The articles cover a wide field and manifest a uniformly high culture in every 
field covered. It is striking how this great educator seems to have anticipated the 
educational tendencies of our times some decades before they imprest the rest of us. 
He has been a pathfinder for many younger men, and. still points the way to higher 
heights. The book is thoroughly up-to-date.” — Service, Philadelphia. 

" Clear, informing, and delightfully readable. Whether the subject is art and 
morals, technique in expression, or character in a republic, each page will be found 
interesting and the treatment scholarly, but simple, sane, and satisfactory . . . th< 
story of the Chicago fire is impressingly vivid. ” — Chicago Standard. 

"He is a philosopher, whose encouraging idealism is well grounded in scientific 
study, and who illuminates points of psychology and ethics as well as of art when 
they come up in the course of the discussion. ” — The Scotsman, Edinburgh, Scotland. 

"A scholar of wide learning, a teacher of experience, and a writer of entertaining 
and convincing style.” — Chicago Examiner. 

‘“The Mayflower Pilgrims’ and ‘Individual Character in Our Republic’ call for 
unstinted praise. They are interpenetrated by a splendid patriotism.” — Rochester 
Post-Express. 

"Agreeably popularizes much that is fundamental in theories of life and thought. 
The American people owe much of their progress, their optimism, and we may say 
their happiness to the absorption of just such ideals as Professor Raymond stands 
for.” — Minneapolis Book Review Digest. 

"They deal with subjects of perennial interest, and with principles of abiding 
importance, and they are presented with the force and lucidity which his readers 
have come to look for in Dr. Raymond.” — Living Age, Boston. 

Suggestions for the Spiritual Life — College Chapel Talks. 

8vo., cloth. Net, $140; by mail, $1.53. 

"Sermons of more than usual worth, full of thought of the right kind, fresh, 
strong, direct, manly. ... Not one seems to strain to get a young man’s atten- 
tion by mere popular allusions to a student environment. They are spiritual, 
scriptural, of straight ethical import, meeting difficulties, confirming cravings, 
amplifying tangled processes of reasoning, and not forgetting the emotions. ” — Hart- 
ford Theological Seminary Record (Congregationalist). 

"The clergyman who desires to reach young men especially, and the teacher of 
men’s Bible Classes may use this collection of addresses to great advantage. . . . 
The subjects are those of every man’s experience in character building . . . such a 
widespread handling of God’s word would have splendid results in the production 
of men.” — The Living Church (Episcopalian). 

"Great themes, adequately considered. . . . Surely the young men who 
listened to these sermons must have been stirred and helped by them as we have 
been stirred and helped as we read them.” — Northfield (Mass.) Record of Christian 
Work (Evangelical). 

"They cover a wide range. _ They are thoughtful, original, literary, concise, 
condensed, pithy. They deal with subjects in which the young mind will be inter- 
ested. ” — Western Christian Advocate (Methodist). 

"Vigorous thought, vigorously expressed. One is impressed by the moderation 
and sanity of the teachings here set forth and scholarly self-restraint in statement. 
Back of them is not only a believing mind, but genuine learning and much hard 
thinking.” — Lutheran Observer. 

“ Though most of the addresses were prepared over forty years ago ... no 
chapter in the book seems to be either ‘ old-fogy ish ’ or ‘unorthodox.’ ” — The Watch- 
man (Boston, Baptist). 

"The preacher will find excellent models for his work and stimulating thought . . . 
attractively presented and illustrated. . . . The addresses are scholarly and 
especially adapted to cultivated minds. They show evidence of intimate acquaint- 
ance with modern science and sympathy with modern ideas.” — Springfield (Mass.) 
Republican. 

"Beautiful and inspiring discourses . . . embody the ripe conviction of a mind 
of exceptional refinement, scholarship, and power ... a psychologist, a phil- 
osopher, and a poet. ” — N. Y. Literary Digest. 

"Never was such a book more needed by young men than just now.” — Philadel- 
phia Public Ledger. 


FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Pubs* New York and London! 


Other Books by Professor Raymond 


The Psychology of Inspiration. 8vo., cloth. (New Revised 
Edition). Net, $2.00; by mail, $2.14. 

The book founds its conclusions on a study of the action of the human mind when 
obtaining and expressing truth, as this action has been revealed through the most 
recent investigations of physiological, psychological, and psychic research; and the 
freshness r.nd. originality of the presentation is acknowledged and commended by 
such authorities as Dr. J. Mark Baldwin, Professor of Psychology in Johns Hopkins 
University, who says that its psychological position is “new and valuable”; Dr. 
W. T. Harris, late United States Commissioner of Education and the foremost 
metaphysician in the country, who says it is sure “to prove helpful to many who 
fim- themselves on the border line between the Christian and the non-Christian 
beliefs”; and Dr. Edward Everett Hale, who says that “no one has approached the 
subject from this point of view.” He characterizes it, too, as an “endeavor to 
formulate conceptions that almost every Christian to-day believes, but without know- 
ing why he does so.” As thus intimated by Dr. Hale, the book is not a mere con- 
tribution to apologetics — not a mere defense of Christianity. It contains a formula- 
tion of principles that underlie all rational interpretation of all forms of revealed 
religion. These principles are applied in the book to Christian doctrine, faith, and 
conduct; to the services, discipline, and unity of the church; and to the methods of 
insuring success in missionary enterprise. It strives to reveal both the truth and the 
error that are in such systems of thought as are developed in AGNOSTICISM, 
PRAGMATISM, MODERNISM, THEOSOPHY. SPIRITUALISM, AND CHRIS- 
TIAN SCIENCE. 

The first and, perhaps, the most important achievement of the book is to show 
that the fact of inspiration can be demonstrated scientifically ; in other words, that 
the inner subconscious mind can be influenced irrespective of influences exerted 
through the eyes and the ears, e., by what one sees or hears. In connection with 
this fact it is also shown that, when the mind is thus inwardly or inspirationally 
influenced, as, for example, in hypnotism, the influence is suggestive and not dicta - 
torial. As a result, the inspired person presents the truth given him not according 
to the letter, but according to the spirit. His object is not to deal with facts and impart 
knowledge, as science does. This would lead men to walk by sight. His object is 
to deal with principles, and these may frequently be illustrated just as accurately by 
apparent, or, as in the case of the parable, by imagined circumstances, as by actual 
ones. For this reason, many of the scientific and historical so-called “objections” 
to the Bible need not be answered categorically. Not only so, but such faith as it is 
natural and right that a rational being should exercise can be stimulated and devel- 
oped in only the degree in which the text of a sacred book is characterized by the 
very vagueness and variety of meaning and statement which the higher criticism 
of the Bible has brought to light. The book traces these to the operation and re- 
quirements of the human mind through which inspiration is received and to which 
it is imparted. Whatever inspires must appear to be, in some way, beyond the grasp 
of him who communicates it, and can make him who hears it think and train him to 
think, in the degree only in which it is not comprehensive or complete; but merely, 
like everything else in nature, illustrative of that portion of truth which the mind 
needs to be made to find out for itself. 


“ A book that everybody should read . . . medicinal for protest Christians, and 
full of guidance and encouragement for those finding themselves somewhere between 
the desert and the town. The sane, fair, kindly attitude taken gives of itself a 
profitable lesson. The author proves conclusively that his mind — and if his, why 
not another’s? — can be at one and the same time sound, sanitary, scientific, and 
essentially religious. ” — The Examiner, Chicago. 

“The author writes with logic and a ‘sweet reasonableness’ that will doubtless 
convince many halting minds. It is an inspiring book ."—Philadelphia Inquirer. 

“It is, we think, difficult to overestimate the value of this volume at the present 
critical pass in the history of Christianity.” — The Arena, Boston. 

“ The author has taken up a task calling for heroic effort, and has given us a volume 
worthy of careful study. . . . The conclusion is certainly very reasonable.” — 
Christian Intelligencer, New York. 

“Interesting, suggestive, helpful,” — Boston Congregationalist. 

“Thoughtful, reverent, suggestive.” — Lutheran Observer, Philadelphia. 

“Professor Raymond is a clear thinker, an able writer, and an earnest Christian, 
and his book is calculated to be greatly helpful to those in particular who, brought up 
in the Christian faith, find it impossible longer to reconcile the teachings of the 
Church with the results of modern scientific thought. ” —Newark ( N. J.) Evening 
News. 


FUNK Si WAGNALLS COMPANY, Pubs., New York and London 






























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